Quietly,
with scarcely a string of words, the last typewriter manufactured in Britain
left the production line at Brothers factory in North Wales in November 2012.
Dutifully, duly, this instant relic was handed directly to a museum of
technology.
Rumours
persist online that someone, somewhere is still making typewriters, but
increasing evidence from the same source suggests that if they are they do not
have a big publicity profile. Searches for the machines in Melbourne kept
coming up with the word eBay, a word that my spell checker only recognises when
the second letter, not the first, is capitalised. Computers are now telling us
how to behave, something we never expect of a typewriter.
The
sense that something not too long ago happened to typewriters is felt when we
notice that there are no new models in libraries and offices and homes. They
are simply not being bought, and there is a reason for that. This week the
Library sent a good-natured request to its own e-list:
The
Typewriter at the Carmelite Library
Spine
labels on books record the call number of the book, so the books are shelved in
the correct order. The Carmelite Library prefers to use a typewriter for
production of spine labels, and thereby hangs a tale. The Library typewriter is
acting erratically. It is unreliable. The Library needs another typewriter for
the typing of spine labels. Any typewriter that works. It doesn’t matter how
old-fashioned, manual or electric, as long as it works. We are hoping someone
on the list (or a local parishioner) may have a typewriter, in good working
order, that they can give to the
Library on a permanent loan. Good working order also means its ribbons are
still on the market. Please talk to the librarian Philip Harvey at the
Library, or by phone on 9682-8553
Responses were encouraging. One friend of the Library said
he had a couple of manual typewriters, stored against the day when the whole
computer universe suffered a collective meltdown. I advised him we wanted a
typewriter because it’s faster and more practical than the computer for this
particular job. Up until now, at least, that has been the case. Others
came to our aid with working typewriters, or mostly working except maybe for a
few keys that need straightening, the caps lock is gone, or a roller needs
constant adjustment. Minor mechanical problems go with the scene. Availability
of ribbons hangs over us like a Damocles sword: we survive by a thread.
Perhaps
typewriters are going the way of vinyl records. They have never gone away and
remain in demand, even though the majority of people use another technology.
For we must face the fact that we are in a transitional phase, where a major
form of 20th-century communication has been swept aside quicker than
we can say qwerty. This divide becomes most apparent in age groups.
People
over fifty grew up with typewriters, tapped to their heart’s content or
rampaged furiously over the keyboard in search of their lost Hemingway self. An
office without a typewriter was almost a meaningless concept. Many of these 50+
people were easy converts to the computer, where errors can be corrected on
sight, storage can be facilitated in what a writer friend of mine calls her
‘virtual box’, and any of dozens of fonts can be selected from a dropdown menu.
My favourite is Garamond, though lately I have developed a fondness for
Cambria. With a typewriter it is one size fits all. Other 50+ people watch with fear and trembling the passing of the
typewriter. They have a possessiveness about typewriters that rises above
sentimentality. The pure logic of the Save Icon is a whole new science, there
to take away their fixed and secure feelings about return levers and shift
keys. Their Remington is a fortress of good practice. Their Olivetti is not
just the acme of style, it serves a useful purpose.
People
under thirty display a very different attitude to typewriters. Typewriters are,
for them, a fascinating object of creative delight. –30 people grew up with the
computer screen and its hundred attendant devices. None of that overload of
effects applies here. The typewriter delivers the words immediately, creates a
fresh page of new script on call, gets the job done in real time. I have
witnessed teens and pre-teens rush on sight to a typewriter in order to muck
around with it and see what marvellous creations they can extract from its
readymade capability. You can take them anywhere, more so the typewriters that
don’t need to be plugged in. In fact, typewriters are cool.
All
of this explains why businesses in some parts of the world now specialise in
typewriters. They are stocking up the machines and their replacement parts, in
anticipation of an ongoing demand. This is potentially lucrative, especially as
parts become more rare. It is possible to imagine typewriter clubs, in the same
way as we have clubs for vintage and veteran cars. Indeed, typewriters are
already classifiable themselves as vintage or veteran. The fact that the Carmelite Library can ask
brazenly for a free typewriter is itself telling. The motive and action are
validated by the reality that typewriters everywhere sit around gathering dust.
Few people use their typewriter, which is why they are quite happy to send it
somewhere where it serves a useful purpose. I myself would have offered one of
the three typewriters we have at home, except that one of them has some faulty
key responses, the second is liable to breakdown without hospital care, and the
third is a classic memory typewriter used by one member of the household for
storing day thoughts. It’s a blog without the web.
Responses
to the Library request keep arriving by email. Next week we will have to decide
which one of these offers comes with ribbons that are still being made. It is a
sign of the times that big stationery stores don’t sell typewriters anymore,
but do sell the ribbons that go with them. Next week, it will be time to make
some phone calls.
