Typewritten

CyclopsJnr is developing an interest in letters, and enjoys typing his name (and those of his parents) on computers and seeing the letters appear on the screen.

I thought he might be fascinated by my old typewriter.  He was.

According to the guarantee stamp on the instruction booklet, it was bought for me in 1985.  I remember having a toy typewriter earlier, and this being bought for me as a "proper grownup typewriter".  I don't know if it was at the time or late, but I remember my parents saying "they thought it would see me through University".  Aged 10 I must have been young to be trusted with such a piece of equipment, and I still feel that responsibility!

I remember typing essays on it for secondary school when we lived in Aberdeen, but by the time we moved house I was trying to borrow my dad's word processor for essays.  In fact, when he upgraded to a PC, his old Amstrad PCW went on a table in the hall for my brother and I to use.

The typewriter never did go to University with me. By 1993 word processing was commonplace, and since I was studying Computer Science and Electronic Engineering computers were part of my daily life.

I still keep my typewriter though, for two reasons.

Firstly, as an Engineer, I find it a very satisfying apparatus.  It's solid, mostly metal.  I can see how it works.  It's really very well designed, built on more than a century of experience of making exactly this type of machine.

Secondly (and far more sentimentally), I love the thought of my parents giving me, age 10, this proper grown-up machine that they imagined would be an important part of my life for a decade, or possibly even decades, to come.