Open Writing

“Makes a fabulous gift for all those who remember the good old days,’’ says the advert.

“There’s nothing more satisfying than the click, click of a traditional typewriter…’’

And this “classic retro style’’ manual typewriter certainly seems to be a bargain at £49.99.

But no thanks. I’ve already got one. And yes, it does make me remember the good old days.

Those days nearly 50 years ago when I was starting out as a reporter on a weekly newspaper in Batley, Yorkshire.

The Batley News office was a stern stone building which rubbed shoulders with a variety of textile firms on a busy main road. The reporters’ room, with its big communal table-desk, was on the third floor.

On the table were four or five sit-up-and-beg typewriters, ancient enough to have brought news of World War One, if not the Boer War. There were more reporters than there were typewriters.

A fledgling newsman, eager to hammer out the results of a pigeon race, often had to wait for a machine to become available on which to produce his golden prose.

Impatient members of the reporting team - and that was every last one of us - avoided delay, and the possible evaporation of inspiration, by bringing in our own portable typewriters.

I had a loyal Imperial Good Companion, a sturdy machine embedded in a wooden case, heavy enough to leave me breathless after carrying it up from street level to the third floor. No lifts in the Batley News office. Its interior was so ramshackle that we felt grateful to even have staircases.

That Good Companion could not have been more appropriately named. It travelled thousands of miles with me on a Lambretta scooter, fastened to the luggage carrier with rubber straps.

And hundreds of thousands of words flew inkily from its keys, bringing news of rugby league matches and court cases, sudden deaths and council meetings.

Because it never broke down I took it for granted. So robustly was it built that a horn-hoofed animal could have learned to type on it.

When I eventually went off to work for a newspaper in the United States the Good Companion stayed behind, shut away in a cupboard.

There in the US, the land flowing with milk, honey and dollar bills, I worked in a newspaper office which was just as decrepit and ill-equipped as that of the Batley News.

Again there was a need to buy a portable typewriter.

I bought a second-hand machine from the top public official of the Texas city where I was then working. A grand little typewriter it was too. Easily able to cope with the three-fingers-of-each-hand hammerings of a chap who never quite mastered the art of touch-typing.

After I’d been using it about a month I had to interview the official who had sold it to me to get information on a major city development. He gave me the facts for a story, then, after a slight pause, said “Would you sell the typewriter back to me? I’m missing it. I’ll give you more than you paid for it.’’

Somehow or other I managed to convince him that he didn’t really want it back. And it served me well through months of strenuous reporting in Texas and Indiana.

Now all my writing is done on a computer keyboard. Very forgiving, computers. Help you with your spelling. Highlight your mistakes.

I still have an Adler portable typewriter tucked away in a cupboard though. Just in case the electronic communications age comes to an unexpected end.

If the need arises the Adler can be strapped to the back of a scooter.