You might well imagine that pen repair is a sedentary occupation but that’s far from the truth. I’m sure there are people in training for the London Olympics whose regime is less rigorous than mine.

Some tasks need to be carried out at the bench where there’s very strong light and lots of magnification available. That’s where each pens starts as I assess its condition and what needs to be done to it. Then it’s over to the work area next to the sink where all the tools I might need for disassembly are laid out. A little further away from the sink I have the hair drier plugged in to help me release uncooperative sections and clip screws. I find it’s quite beneficial to separate electrics and water. The occasional good shock does keep one alert but it does nothing for the coiffure.

But you do need water. A lot of it. I’m glad our water isn’t metered because I’d have a hefty bill. Ink is great on the page. Elsewhere it’s a major nuisance, and it’s amazing how much ink is contained in a little pen that hasn’t been used in my lifetime! As well as removing the ink, water is useful in loosening the nib and feed in the section. I don’t soak things, but I encourage a little water to get through the section. If it doesn’t become free-flowing, then I encourage a lot of water to pass through the section. Then, if necessary, it’s over to another work surface to drift out the nib and feed. Does the nib need work? Back to the bench to work under the strong light and the magnification stand.

That done, it’s over to the shelves to select an appropriate sac, and back to my first work area to fit it. Then back to the bench for final assembly and detailing.

That’s one pen done. Multiply that by however many I can get through in a good, long day – maybe twelve or fifteen – and I must have covered quite a few miles. Add in the cooking and the cleaning and the laundry…

When I learned to write in the long, long ago (Methuselah was a mere child compared with me) it was first with wooden pencil, then with dip pen and finally with fountain pen. Some time later, ballpoints became allowed though I never really took to them myself.

Many fountain pens, even the cheap, steel-nibbed ones that I had, will give some flexibility. Whenever I could find it I was glad of it. Nowadays, when people have generally lost the ability to write in what used to be the normal cursive style, I’m regarded as a good writer. Those many years ago when I was a kid, it was not so. Many was the stern talking-to I got from the teacher and there was the occasional clip round the ear. Trouble was, I was an imprecise writer, leaving unintended loops wherever my pen changed direction. Inducing a thicker line at those points covered up a multitude of sins, and a good thing it was too, poor writing being regarded in those days as only slightly less heinous than high treason.

In truth, that’s what flexibility still does for me. I write as I have always written, but the variable line-width enhances my scrawl. It makes it look stylish, as if I was in control of this writing instrument which actually only obeys me when it wants. That encourages me and I make a greater effort, so that over the many years there has actually been some real improvement in my writing, on good days at least. We’re not talking an excessive amount of flexibility here; a lively semi-flex nib on the right shape of pen is all I need. Somewhere in my withered soul there is a longing to really write well with a fine-pointed, rigid nibbed pen but I suspect that will remain an unfulfilled ambition. Yes, I occasionally persevere with a Sheaffer or unforgiving Duofold for a while but it’s not a success. Soon I’m looking for my Swan Leverless or pre-war Conway Stewart.

As you may imagine, oblique stubs have a similar effect on my writing and I do enjoy them, but there is a machine-like regularity to their line variation that I dislike. A pleasant compromise is the flexible oblique, a not at all uncommon nib type in British pens. As I intimated above, the deluded regard me as a good writer and over the years I’ve often been asked to produce place-cards and the like. I’m no calligrapher but I can produce a moderately attractive exaggeration of my own writing style, replete with curlicues and flourishes which seems to satisfy those who know no better. I enjoy it; though it’s laborious and more like painting than writing, it gives my very flexible pens an outing and I really enjoy deploying that elastic, paint-brush-like line.

There seems to be a wish among those who practice or aspire to real calligraphy to use fountain pens. It doesn’t work well, or at least not in the cursive styles like copperplate or Spencerian. For italic styles fountain pens may work well enough, but when serious line variation is called for, dip pens work better. They’re cheap, so little loss if a nib is broken before it was quite worn out – unlike a fountain pen nib. Dip nibs are capable of – generally – greater line variation, and the necessary pause to re-ink the pen is no disadvantage in calligraphy. The calligrapher isn’t in a hurry to cover the paper. He just wants to do it right, and the time taken is not a major concern. No call for a reservoir pen here! As a footnote, Osmiroid with their copperplate nibs and Esterbrook with their various supposedly flexible nibs encouraged calligraphers to go the way of the fountain pen, but it was a blind alley. It’s about as easy to flex a crowbar as an Osmiroid copperplate nib.

So that’s my relationship with flexibility, and an uncomplicated one it is. In my heart of hearts I love its Dionysian departure from the dry and regimented course of precisely perfect writing. Though I’m not sure that the pen is mightier than the sword – indeed I sincerely doubt it – there is something of the romance of sword-play in the well-handled varying line and the sweep of an enjoyable flourish!

Today I’ve been testing pens, making the necessary adjustments to regulate flow and eliminate scratchiness. For flexible pens, you have to allow for a little drag on the paper at full flex, but they should be smooth unflexed. Or, shall we say, as smooth as can be reasonably achieved. Older pens don’t have the big globular lump of tipping material that many modern pens have, so some, especially fines, often still retain a little residue of friction against the paper even when the tines are as they should be and the tip has been polished. That’s fine. It’s what users of older pens have experienced before and they like it; some call it feedback.

I have actually had complaints that a particular pen or two were too smooth and gave no feedback. That can be true of stiff-nibbed pens with plenty of tipping material like Mentmores and Parkers. Truth be told, there’s little that can be done about it. I could give it more feedback at the cost of misaligning a tine slightly but that really doesn’t seem right. Theoretically, you could roughen up the tipping material, though I’m not sure how it would be done and again, it would seem like an act of vandalism. Maybe it’s best to avoid those pens if you don’t like slippery-smooth.

Testing, refining and re-testing is when I get to know the pens I’ve bought. Handling them during restoration gives me some idea of how they will be, if the nib’s stiff, soft or flexible, how the pen balances with the cap on and off, how the gripping area feels in the hand and so on. It isn’t until I’ve written a few paragraphs that balance and nib performance begin to come together to show the pen’s character as a writing instrument. There are few – or possibly no – pens that I dislike to write with. They all have their qualities to which you can adapt. Some, though, are so well-made that they encourage you to write with a flair and dash that you couldn’t do with a more pedestrian pen. These pens aren’t uncommon, nor are they all flexible, though some are. My pens of the day today have been a very flexible International Safety Pen eyedropper, a lovely old long Swan SF1 and a De La Rue Pen, one that doesn’t come my way often. Each was completely different from the others, yet they all shared one characteristic: they were pens that make you want to write.