Our new King isn’t the only royal to have lost his rag over a leaky pen, as happened when he was signing a visitors’ book at Hillsborough Castle near Belfast. ‘Oh God, I hate this,’ King Charles said, before handing the pen to his wife, Camilla, Queen Consort. ‘I can’t bear this bloody thing… every stinking time,’ he added.
Tired of having to wash his hands after every warrant-signing session, the 10th-century Arab Egyptian ruler the Fatima caliph al-Mu’izz demanded his servants find him a writing utensil that wouldn’t leak everywhere. Courtiers set to work and soon a revolutionary new pen appeared that held ink in a reservoir. It allowed him to write at any angle without fear of leakages.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Leonardo da Vinci constructed his own version of the fountain pen, which he used for technical drawing. It meant he could avoid the tedium of dipping traditional quills into ink. In the 17th century, fountain pens became widely available across Europe and by the 1880s, they had largely replaced quills, although quills continued to be used in royal circles. In 1962, Parker pens were awarded the Royal Warrant by Queen Elizabeth II and became the official supplier of writing instruments to the Royal Household.
Rarely spotted today in classrooms, the fountain pen was once a staple of every schoolboy’s satchel. Pupils used to be marked down for scruffy handwriting. Stained fingers, inky shirtsleeves and blotted exercise books were considered a small price to pay for beautifully crafted calligraphy. The humble Biro, with its scratchy feel and unpredictable ink flow, was considered far inferior, even though it was less likely to leak. At my school, teachers would ridicule ‘Biro-boys’ whose parents were unable to afford more expensive Parker pens.
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