Five reasons to still use a typewriter
We (that is, the family) had a Brother electric typewriter back in the early 1990s, prior to the advent of affordable personal computers. 'Fraid I can't remember the model though (could have been an early Wrexham CM1000, in fact - they all look alike to me! Not as huge a fan of electric types as I am of the good old manual typewriter.). Still ours was used fairly frequently, mainly by mother for work but also by me for schoolwork (always enjoyed the auto-correct function, I must admit!) and to give the old Imperial a bit of a rest now and then!
Britain's 'last typewriter' produced
The demise of British typewriter production does have a personal aspect then, as it also seems to in a wider sense for a great many Britishers who remember using [manual] typewriters and the U.K.'s manufacturing heyday. From my point of view (and, I suspect, a number of my readers') it has the added layer of interest tinged with sadness as the sphere of the typewriter grows slightly smaller still. As such it may not be the kind of jolly story this blog values and is known for, but it is a little bit of noteworthy technological history in the making and deserves to be documented here.
The typewriter will no doubt continue for many more years to come both in its existing modern form and in its previous incarnations thanks to the concerted efforts of the Typosphere. From now on, though, only the latter will exist in Britain.
