Before I soldier on with my blog as if nothing has happened, it seems rude not to say a few words of thanks to Anthony for his excellent blog, ukfountainpens.com.

On 16 November 2019, in a post entitled (with characteristic humour) “It’s not you, it’s me,” Anthony announced his decision to end his blog, after almost three years. This post was met with an outpouring of comments from his many shocked readers, expressing sadness at his decision but also, understanding at his reasons, which he had laid out and explained with honesty and undeniable logic.

During this time, it seems that he has done it all. Having long since exhausted the mainstream options, he had bought pens from every conceivable source, tried every sort of nib, published numerous detailed and authoritative reviews, set himself challenges, met them, not met them, published interviews, travels with pens stories, currently inked lists, buying guides, news round-ups, pen show write-ups and editorials.

I, like many of his blog followers, will miss his posts. Since January 2017, Anthony has published some 319 posts, bringing us on his journey through the world of stationery and in particular, his passion for fountain pens and inks.

I am not setting out here to review the reviewer, which would be patronising, but just to acknowledge the achievement and work that has gone into this. Since New Year’s Day in 2017, Anthony has grown the blog to achieve around half a million views.

His blog was always interesting, entertaining, informative and written in his engaging style. Being a writer by profession must have helped, with a keen interest in product photography too, but it is still a lot of work to be a frequent blogger. From September to November alone he published some 47 posts.

Anthony has an insatiable appetite for the best that the world of fountain pens has to offer. To some extent, he bought, tried and reviewed these pens so that we did not have to. At times it was staggering to hear how many ever more fabulous pens were incoming. The rate at which he bought and then sold some of his high end pens if they did not make the grade, also became staggering. And all this, while trying to reconcile his temptations with a longing for minimalism, tidiness and order.

Anthony probably tried harder than anyone else I know in the fountain pen community, to keep his collection of quality pens to around thirty to fit his storage facility and to move any pens on, which he was not using. He also went to unusual lengths to control his ink stockpile, by selling boxes containing a random selection of almost full bottles of inks, to buyers happy to take the gamble on a mystery selection. That sounded a lot of fun to be a part of.

One of the nice things I find about the fountain pen community generally, is that we take people as we find them. Everyone is different, has different tastes, budgets, talents and foibles. Anthony admits to having an obsessive tendency and recognised that his pen buying habit had become unhealthy and that the demands of maintaining his blog were fuelling this. He chose to take decisive action and call time on his blogging, at the height of its success.

Anthony’s posts were often thought provoking. On occasions, I made notes from his posts, leaving a column to insert and compare my opinions next to his. One such post was “Are we pen-compatible?” of 3 February 2019. Here he detailed his fountain pen likes and dislikes. We are both left handed over-writers. He never posts his pens. I mostly do. The most telling distinction between us was that he generally did not use pens costing under £150 and his pens were mostly to be found in the range of £300 to £500. For me, whilst I have a handful of what I call valuable pens, such as Montblancs, a Pelikan M800 and recently an Aurora 88, the majority of my pen accumulation falls in the “below £150” category.

Our paths did run in parallel, to some extent. My blog was started in November 2016, a couple of months before his. However I seldom produce more than three posts a month and my viewing figures were dwarfed by Anthony’s. But it never felt as though we were competing. Our interests lay at opposite ends of the spectrum, although occasionally they converged in the middle (for example, over the excellent Waterman Carene).

Through Anthony’s post on the Parker Duofold International, my interest in this pen was aroused and I went on to buy from Anthony, the very model that he had reviewed. On another occasion, Anthony bought a Kaweco Dia2 partly on the strength of my review. However, he later found that the pen did not suit him and I bought it from him.

After reading that there would be no more posts, I trawled the archives on his web site to compile a list of all his back catalogue by number, date and title. I wanted to make a checklist against which I could record which I had read and to help catch up on those I had missed. The list runs to 13 A4 pages. Many warrant a second reading and bring a smile to my face, such as the line in his review of the Montblanc Heritage 1912 ” I recently went on a business trip, and found myself unable to get in the taxi to the airport until I had it safely in my jacket pocket, like a weighty talisman”. I now have a 1912 of my own.

I appreciate that some of these posts will have taken several hours to create. We do well to remember that what readers may take 10 minutes to devour, may have taken the writer half a day or more to plan, photograph, draft and edit. It is a labour of love and if it stops being fun for the writer, it is time to stop.

I hope that Anthony’s blog will remain up for the foreseeable future, for everyone to enjoy as it represents a huge body of work. Three years is a good chunk of time. I would have started writing this piece a few hours ago but have just been enjoying again some of his older issues, back to back.

So, thank you Anthony for this legacy to the online pen community and best wishes for the future, wherever the journey takes you.