The Typewriter - Last & First

Much in the news recently about the closing down of the last ever factory that makes typewriters. Godrej and Boyce shut down production in Mumbai, India, at the end of April. Apparently, typewriters hung on in India when they had long since disappeared everywhere else.

For me, this information arrived at exactly the right moment. My sister had just asked me if I'd like to have my mother's typewriter. Now ninety and long past tying, mum had dug out her portable Olivetti, bought in the 1960s, and offered it to my sister to. Clearly, mum didn't want to put it in the bin and hoped that Helen would use it.

'I don't want it do you?' Helen asked me. I wasn't sure. Keeping such a bulky, redundant object was at odds with my current need to de-clutter. It was only a few months ago that took my old iMac to re-cycling. But, as I opened the red case, the years dissolved.

Though it's keys are feathery with dust and the case smells of the damp garage it's been stored in for over 20 years, beneath that I catch a whiff of the inkiness of the ribbon, the rubberyness of the platen. Memories flood back: the postman delivering this magic object mum ordered from a small ad. in the newspaper; watching her unpack the parcel, set the machine up on the dining table; her fingers flying over the keys. How does she do that?

I loved writing stories. Could you really get them down so fast and see them in print, and by your own hand - If only I could do that ...

Mum's typewriter. A little dusty but it still works...

Mum had bought the typewriter in order to brush up her pre-children speeds. Not long after it arrived she saw a postcard in the Newsagent's window - a writer wanted a typist to type up a novel manuscript. She sat at the dining table, a pile of handwritten pages to the side of the machine and bashed away, excited that she'd be paid for doing this work at home. I was excited at the thought that my mum was typing up all those words to make it become a book.

It didn't last.

The pile of paper disappeared. 'It's not suitable,' she said, 'I'm not typing that kind of thing.' She never spoke again of the novel manuscript and was wary of postcards in the Newsagent's window. I still wonder who, in our neighbourhood, had been writing a racy fiction?

It didn't put me off. I tapped and pecked away, frustrated that I had to watch the keys, when my mum's fingers seemed to know where each letter was. The way I typed was slower than hand-writing but I loved to see the printed letters form.

Later, home from college for the summer, I travelled to Manchester each day for two weeks to do a crash course in touch-typing. After that, no more watching the keys. Instead, I watched the words fly onto the paper and got my own portable typewriter as present for my twenty-first birthday. Once the Amstrad appeared, well, the rest is history. I'm writing this on my third, or is it my fourth, Mac.

Pre-Tippex - the typewriter rubber mum used, still tied to the string she fixed it to in the 1960s

Still wondering what to do about mum's Olivetti I Googled the word and find that Cormac McCarthy, until a couple of years ago, wrote everything on an Olivetti just like my mum's. And twenty-five year old poet, Claire Askew, who collects typewriters, would love to own an Olivetti. 'Design Icon of the 1960s,' she calls it.

How can I not keep it?

It certainly can't go to the dump as my sister intended. I'll have to find room for it somewhere.

While it's a luxury for me to keep this Proustian object there are some writers who still need a typewriter as part of their process.

Has anyone told Paul Auster there'll be no more typewriters? For him the typewriter is essential he said in a Paris Review interview: 'Typing allows me to experience the book in a new way, to plunge into the flow of the narrative and feel how it functions as a whole. I call it, "reading with my fingers," and it's amazing how many errors your fingers will find that your eyes never noticed.' He famously bought up stocks of ribbons a few years ago. 'I'm living in fear that a day will come when there won't be any ribbons left to buy and I'll have to go digital and join the twenty-first century.'

Looks as if he'll have to go out and buy up a few vintage typewriters. I know his typewriter is an Olympia, subject of the book he did with artist Sam Messer. But if his Olympia ever lets him down I know where he can get an Olivetti in good working order.