I find myself writing about Swans very often but I do use other pens! Over the years I’ve had many Conway Stewarts and I enjoy them too though they don’t usually have the variety of nibs that Swans have. Most Conway Stewart nibs are firm medium. All the other nib types occur, but not at all frequently. I’ve had the Conway Stewart Italic which is a named model in its own right, and a very nice pen. A little line variation can often be induced from Conway Stewart nibs though very flexible ones are uncommon. That’s okay by me; I don’t do flex.

Conway Stewarts are reliable. A few years ago I did a course which included a written exam at the end. Careful as always, I put four pens on the desk. The one I selected was a Conway Stewart 388. Three thousand words later I was still using it, the other three unused. I’ve used a Conway Stewart 286 in a similar situation and it was equally reliable.

Conway Stewart had their own type of button filler, a very efficient system. Then there’s the Speedy Phil which is another matter entirely! Most Conway Stewarts are lever fillers and very good ones, using the slide pressure bar, similar to the Waterman type. It’s more efficient at compressing the sac than the j-bar. Lever-fill Conway Stewarts are a pleasure to service.

Many Conway Stewarts passed over my workbench but I didn’t keep any of them. I should have hung on to a few, especially the pre-war ones (I just prefer the shape). The only one I have now is a black 85, the typical post-war Conway Stewart. It was a gift from a friend, his father’s pen. It is almost always inked. I don’t really regret not keeping any of the fancier patterns such as the cracked ice or herringbone. I can see gorgeous Conway Stewarts in the excellent books by Stephen Hull and Andy Russell so I don’t feel that I need to own them.

Like many other pen companies of all nationalities Conway Stewart suffered a sad decline. As a means of keeping the company alive it failed. Conway Stewart has been reborn several times. Those later companies and their pens don’t interest me.

My husband’s memory of Conway Stewart goes back much further than mine. He remembers colourful pens on cards in the newsagent’s and individual boxed pens being given as school prizes to the lucky few. He never owned a Conway Stewart pen when he was at school. His habit of breaking or losing fountain pens meant that he was limited to Osmiroid or Platignum pens.