Pencil Shavings and Roughbooks

Yesterday I sent my 11 year old out to the shops to get himself some things for school. I have had to resist the urge to buy him things myself but there's a big difference between what an 11 year old boy thinks is cool and that of his 50 odd year old mother.  

So I just browsed around WH Smiths and Wilkinson's recalling the days when I was beside myself with excitement because my mother was taking me out to buy new school stationery.

My Satchel was something like this.  We all had them in the early years of secondary school, weighed the same as a small car and probably the cause of my bad shoulder now!  Later on as we moved up the school, and became 'cooler' we had more fashionable bags, and remember once having a black Tweety Pie bag - but they don't seem to exist on google images.  The smell of a school satchel is a combination of old leather and school classroom. You know that smell that only exists in a school...the smell that instantly transforms you into   a 14 year old again?

Inside would be as many books as I needed to have with me as I moved around school, my rough book, pencil case, wooden ruler, geometry set, trigonometry tables, blotting paper, maybe a few odd sweets amongst the pencil shavings I'd put in there because the bin was too far away, and undoubtedly lots of crumpled up bits of paper used to communicate with friends secretly..old fashioned texting!  Of course there would be the obligatory graffiti on it, initials, love hearts, bands names etc etc. I do wish I had kept it. 

The creme de la creme of stationery was your pencil case.  None of the usual ones you could get in Woolies or WH Smiths for me.  I went to proper art shops and got fancy pants ones...or sometimes my aunty who was a graphic designer would buy me one from London. I'm still very particular about where I keep my pens and things and like those with lots of sections, so my ink cartridges don't rub shoulders with my retractable pencil or heaven forbid my fountain pen.

The fact that I had an artistic aunty meant that from a very early age I was given good quality tools to draw and paint with which turned out expensive as my parents had to cough up for Steadtler and Reeves rather than cheap ones from Woolies. 

I did go on to do GCSE Art with the intention to go on to Art College, so my collection of quality equipment, pastels, acrylics and other arty things grew considerably until I ended up taking in a big red art box every time I had an Art lesson.

We called then Rough Books. Also know as Jotters. Ours were an insipid blue colour and thicker than the usual books we got for individual subjects.  First job of the term was to cover your rough book in something.  It started with wall paper, then went on to sticky back plastic - Fablon!  It was the only book we were allowed to cover, so we went to great lengths to do it properly and then proceeded to write and doodle all over it until it had to be re-covered again.

When I started Grammar School aged 11, a very good family friend bought me a Parker Fountain pen to start school with. I still have that pen, but have since moved on to better ones. I really enjoy writing in ink, it's something we don't do much of anymore, which is a shame.  

So, on Tuesday morning, my youngest son will hop on his bike and start a new stage of his life. I doubt he will remember things like his new pencil case or the pens or his lovely new Jotter that he will scribble in rather than fill in neatly as I did. He will be smitten by the banks of computers and other technology available today.

Times have changed.