Hi everyone

I'm Kris and I live in London, not far from Heathrow airport.

I've been interested in fountain pens for a fair few years now and my collection tend to grow and shrink depending on what I like at the time but there are several favorite pens which have been with me since the start.

Apart from pen collecting, my interests include urban search and rescue and I am a member of a SARAID a UK based volunteer search and Rescue team that offers a team of trained search and rescue technicians free of charge to assist an any disasters anywhere in the world.

Anyway I've just found this forum and am looking forward t getting to know ou and contributing what I can.

Cheers

Kris

Kris,

Welcome to the forums from another UK member there are quite a few of us now. Your other interest sounds pretty interesting and certainly a worthwhile thing to volunteer for.

Hopefully you will find these forums interesting, what sort of pens do you collect, vintage or modern or a mix of both.

Andy

Welcome aboard Kris. you should enjoy this forum.

Hi Kris and welcome aboard from an ex-RAF SAR type.

Hi Kris. Welcome to FPN! What an admirable thing you are doing for the world!

I might be able to arrange a Florida vacation for you if we can get a hurricane to cooperate

Welcome to FPN, KrisH .

Martin

Welcome to the forum Kris. I'm from the opposite end of the M25 in Dartford. Can i ask you where you purchase your pens?

Welcome to FPN.

thanks for the welcome.

Seems like a very friendly place to be

Hi Andy

I collect a mixture of both Vintage and modern and currently have a few of each...

Hello John,

I tend to buy them from all over the place. I've had a few from ebay, a couple from boot sales which I've restored / repaired some bought new and a few from pen dealers in the Portobello Rd.

Welcome to FPN Kris!! Jump right in and post away and enjoy!

Welcome from around the corner by the A40. (Actually quite dark as I write, but you get my drift!)

Rick

Thanks all, nice to be here

Welcome to FPN Kris!

Have you done many rescues?

On another topic [topic="46742"]how often...[/topic] limesally just asked if fountain pens are the norm in Europe. I thought I'd ask the Brits here if fountain pens are issued to school kids or if they are at least exposed to them?

interesting question.

As someone who was schooled in the UK, and not at some posh private school, I guess I'm in a pretty good position to comment. I think it was around the age of 10 or 11 I was introduced to fountain pens. The school was keen to encourage good penmanship...neat handwriting, etc. Back then, someone in the class would have got a fountain pen first...the rest would have followed due to its novelty. In no way was the school expected to provide low-price fountain pens...it was cheap ballpoints for us, and if we lost them then there was trouble.
Any way, I recall asking my mother for a fountain pen....it was a cheap red plastic pen, but I liked it. Of course at that age, it was used until lost or the next novel thing came along. I was given a parker or two (nothing expensive, but they were a big step up!) for birthdays etc. But since then, these have been long lost. I even had a couple of calligraphy pens...broad nibs and a bottle of ink!

I'm not sure what the status of penmanship is in schools now. I should ask my mother, but I'm sure just like the use of the English language, this has also been degraded to the use of cheap ballpoints. Kids will often write in the same manner as they construct text messages on their cell phones. So, in summary, from my point of view, I would say fountain pen use isn't encouraged at school. At high school there is no such thing...the teacher may comment you write like a 5 year old. I do recall some great English teachers I've had at school and I'm sure they would have helped me if I had demonstrated Neanderthal penpenship. Not all teachers are equal.

For rescue, yep one or 2

As for fountain pens in schools, in the UK, no kids dont get given fountain pens or, from what I've seen any encouragement to use them. As an example my 10 year old doesn't have the neatest handwriting as he rushes,

In an effort to slow him down I bought him a cheap fountain pen (yes I know but hey he's 10 and it WILL get broken) of the same manufactuer (Berol Handwriting fountain pen) as they give out in his school, except in school they give them the nylon tipped version of the berol handwriting pen.

The first day he produeced it it was taken away from him and he was sent hme with a note asking not to bring it back as it wasnt suitable for a child to wrire with so they didn't want him using it ... go figure !

Compare this with France, where I understand (though I may be wrong) that its nearly compulsary for kids to use fountain pens once they are over a certain age to improve their handwriting.