Posts Tagged
good companion

Type of Style

I am pathetically excited to have won an Imperial Good Companion typewriter on Ebay for the unprincely sum of £6.28. I don’t even care if the thing is clearly a 1960s model, and not from the ’30s as advertised — at six quid it’s still a bargain.

When I was about eight, I used to have Silver Reed Silverette, in the exact same shade of blue as this fellow’s. I liked it well enough, but it was nowhere near as fun (or as eye-wateringly beautiful) as my grandfather’s Olivetti, which was the machine on which I learned to type with two fingers rather than one. Heavily.

Even today, it’s quite obvious from the way I hammer and pound on my computer keyboard that I taught myself to type badly on a manual machine. So, rather than risk wrecking my Good Companion, I’ve been hunting around on the web for advice on typing techniques.

I found this.

It’s a delight. The presenter, Miss Lenore Benton, is much addicted to issuing stern warnings (adopt the wrong posture and it’s rounded shoulders and a flat chest for you, m’dear) – but, boy, can she type. She taps those keys with a sound that’s as quick and stern as machine gun fire hitting a cow.

Still, whilst no-one expects a U.S. Navy film to be anything other than worthy, I can’t help feel that they failed to capture the glamour of typing. When I think of typewriters, I conjure up images of Hemingway in Cuba, William Burroughs in Tangier and — well, to be fair — something rather more like this:

So, if you’re a North Meadow client and you want to make me very happy indeed, ask for your copy to be typewritten. I might even let you have it a little cheaper.

Posted by: Ben Locker
Published: 28th November, 2008 at 12:20 am in Blog.
Tags: good companion, imperial, olivetti, silver reed, typewriter, typewriting
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