Vicky Ewan: The King's loathing of the pen can be indulged

My heart went out to King Charles - not on the day of his mother's funeral, which was, nonetheless, a beautiful and moving tribute that I imagine everyone who saw will remember forever - but when he attempted to sign his name in a visitors' book in Ireland and suffered a catastrophic pen leakage.

He was visibly - and audibly - frustrated.

Let us be charitable and put things into perspective.

It was a mere five days after his succession to the throne, a period when the eyes of the world were upon him and he was having, very publicly, to grieve the death of his mother - and not only that, but to share that bereavement with his newly-acquired, mourning subjects.

A little unguarded petulance and exasperation deserves to be overlooked, I think. I challenge anyone to behave with perfect grace and composure at such a vulnerable time.

At any rate, I can sympathise with the simple need for things to work as they should, especially in the public eye.

The King's loathing of the pen can be indulged.

For my part, I love fountain pens. They immediately conjure up visions of lexiconically-glorious passages whose contents surely deserve only premier penmanship!

I fondly recall my first fountain pen.

Imagine, if you will, a sublime model featuring a casing festooned with pink hippos. Marvel at the shining silver nib, bask in the cunning concealment of a spare cartridge inside the cavity!

The cartridges were sealed with a miniature ball bearing. It was a peculiar joy of mine to pop the tiny sphere from each used cartridge, clean it assiduously, and add it to my collection - a collection, incidentally, that served no purpose whatsoever, save the happiness it afforded me to observe it - but then, aren't those the best sorts of collections? The ones whose usefulness is only to be found in their beauty?

I adored that pen.Its delivery was smooth and fluid, its ergonomy perfectly balanced.

My next prized pen was a Parker, a 17th birthday present from my best friend, who had espied me coveting it from afar.

Poised at last in my hand, it seemed the zenith of all literary aspiration, far too great a gift.

Thus gorgeously equipped, I would take a particular delight in crafting English essays.

Initially drafted in pedestrian biro, they would be painstakingly copied up in glintingly fresh ink.

The very act of uncapping the pen and applying it to paper would release a fastidiousness in my handwriting that had been previously absent.

Colour-wise, my preference lay with blue.

Black ink's profundity seemed uncompromisingly severe, lacking the elegance I considered to be inherent in navy.

Besides, there existed at that time a nifty little device - a double-ended eraser pen that could eradicate blue-inked words with one nib and write over the new space with the other - genius!

Naturally, the correction wasn't perfect, but the pen was an undeniably useful tool for scholars everywhere.

There was no such recourse for black ink text.

As authorised person at church, I am obliged to complete marriage schedules, official documents generated by registrar offices for the purpose of certifying a lawful marriage.

They require signatures from the couple in church in the presence of two witnesses, the priest and an authorised person, who also sign the document - they replace the 'register' of old.

I had this duty to perform at a wedding recently, and arrived at church 40 minutes early, to furnish the table with the necessary paraphernalia - namely the schedule and a fountain pen, specially acquired for the job and fuelled by registrars' ink that I siphon from jars.

Taking it from its box, I was shocked to discover that neither the pen - nor, indeed, its spare twin - was working.

With time's winged chariot grazing my heels, I hastily checked and refilled the cartridges, then spent an inordinate amount of time scribbling on a spare piece of paper, urging the ink to flow.

One pen eventually responded, producing a sinuous yield equal to producing the scrawled and shaking signatures of five nervous individuals - I count myself among them.

The other was stubbornly resisting and remained defiantly dry.

Feeling desperate, I caught sight of a hand-written note adorning the side of the box, advocating that the pen's nib be run under a tap after each use.

Ruefully acknowledging many previous occasions of negligence, I thrust the nib into a stream of tap water and blotted it dry - observing, with profound relief, black splodges blooming over the towel.

When I reapplied pen to paper, the ink flowed fluidly.

I laid out both pens on the table, discreetly scribbling on scrap paper at opportune moments during the Mass to make sure they were still working.

Towards the end of proceedings, the moment arrived for the schedule to be signed.

There was a flurry of worry when the pen seemed to seize up; my heart flipped over, the bride smiled nervously, I crossed my fingers... and a few seconds of practice scribbling later, all was well: six signatures adorned the schedule - the civic observations were complete.

I breathed a sigh of relief and, a few minutes later, placed the pens back in their box.

After running them under the tap, of course.

I think that would get the royal seal of approval.