Does anyone still use green ink?
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Never have.
We have to mark pupilsā work with green pens
as red was deemed too negative!!!
When they respond or set their own targets they have to use purple pens
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Does that mean that every person who is of an age where we did have our work marked in red must be mentally scarred? Who can I sue?
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I have always had very poor handwriting. I was also a very mucky kid. At school we had to use fountain pens and my work (and fingers) were always covered in ink blots. I used to ask the kids with nice neat writing what make their pen was and then drive my mother mad to get me one. Sadly I discovered that neat writing was not the result of the pen, (be it Osmiroid, Parker, Platinum or whatever) but the hand that held it. On the plus side the ink blots often hid the misspelling.
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I appreciate the positive perception you concluded to 
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Still? I love green ink, well more blue green really but green is ok too. I should add that I didnāt grow up using fountain pens. Theyāre pretty rare here. I had only seen a few before and had never written with one.
I picked one up cheap at a stationary store for journaling many years ago. Loved it and never looked back.
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Not to derail, but you mentioning journals made me sigh. Moving to a smaller space meant I had to throw out over 40 journals. Wellā¦I soaked them in water & bleach before chucking them out, because there was personal stuff in them, but stillā¦it was a wrench to do. Not all of them were filled either. I saved the fully blank ones though 
I have two boxes of them ahem
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I can relate Pixie. When we moved here , we purged so much stuff. There were boxes of journals that Iād had for years. It was bittersweet but I burned them in the backyard. Some of them I skimmed through. It was an emotional thing to do. Bringing boxes of old journals wasnāt on my priority list but they certainly had sentimental value to me personally. Burning them in our backyard of 24 years was emotional.
Note: hope I didnāt derail the thread. 
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They are getting very pricey over here Bruce. Ā£14 for a pack like the one you have shown.
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Itās interesting reading how many people were made to write with fountain pens at school. Ditto we were also made to do this in primary school and possibly secondary too. Something to do with improving our handwriting. We didnāt have ink pots by then but used cartridges. So you always had to make sure you had a supply of these dratted things. The ritual of changing the cartridge etc.
@Mups mentioned italic nibs and not sure why that rings a bell - I think there must have been two types one flatter and thinner than the other - is that right? The italic ones made the writing look prettier? I remember having a blue fountain pen, itās so funny to think of it after all these years. I havenāt used the dratted things since school.
But the best thing since sliced bread was when someone they started selling tippex. I think the school banned it at some point.
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Does anyone remember those little porcelain pots that were put into the holes of your desk and your teacher coming round with a big jar of ink and a funnel to fill them up, and dipping your nib in. And of course the magic of blotting paper. I remember buying blotting pads from WH Smiths in Ealing and also looking lovingly at one of those curved wooden blotting paper things while walking round Portobello market on a Saturday morning.
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We had holes in our desks where the inkpots would once have been. It used to be handy to put sharpenings in there. This was before they invented those sharpeners that had a little see through pot for the sharpenings. Then there was the special classroom sharpener attached to the desk.
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I remember discovering that there are left handed nibs because left handed people hold there pens differently and needed them to slope in a different way.
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Youāre pulling my leg lol
My dream was to buy an electric pencil sharpener but I could never really justify spending that much money
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No, itās true.
Had a quick look and found this
Manuscript Left Handed Nib Italic Pen https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002KGETEK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apan_glt_i_A37DZWTMR03EBZQ5RA7X
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Me too. But I think Iād just grind the pencils down to a nib playing with the electric sharpener.
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Thinking back I remember buying A3 pads of blotting paper and putting one down on my desk at home so it looked like a proper desk and cutting up other sheets to fit into the metal geometry set my school gave out to us and which helix still make, but our free ones didnāt have the printing on them. I remember buying one for my son when he was younger. I also remember having a wooden pencil box which had a sliding lid which meant you could slide it back and swivel the top half round to uncover some extra pens and pencils in the bottom half.
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The clever ones must have had some sort of switch in them so it turned off when the pencil was sharp enough.
I hope that weāre not taking the thread off track too much
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