[jamesicus]

Handwriting and the associated materials & equipment played a big part in our everyday lives during WW2. In those days before computers, cell phones, hand held PDAs, copying machines, etc., all business notes, forms, documents, receipts, school work, personal correspondence -- and so on -- were rendered on paper using pencils or pen and ink. In school we used steel nibbed dip pens and black ink from inkwells in the desktops. Kids fortunate enough to own fountain pens (I owned a used Mabie Todd "Swan" given to me by an uncle in 1938) were allowed to use them. Ballpoint pens did not come into use until after the war.

In Lancashire housewives, shopkeepers, deliverymen, etc. mostly used indelible pencils which they wetted with their tongues (bitter taste) for important notes, receipts, ledger entries, etc. Teachers also used indelible pencils to grade schoolwork. Fountain pens were used by businessmen for formal correspondence and were used for private letter writing by numerous individuals.

Regular lead pencils, indelible pencils, dip pens, paper and ink were in short supply throughout the war and we saved every pencil stub and scrap of good writing paper we could -- we also drastically diluted the classroom ink. Letter writing to loved ones serving in the armed forces was very important during WW2. Fountain pens were treasured writing instruments, the most popular makes being Mabie Todd (Swan & Blackbird), Waterman and Parker in Britain at that time. It was almost impossible to buy new fountain pens in England during the war (the Mabie Todd manufacturing plant was totally destroyed in the London Blitz).