The brothers trying to save the British fountain pen

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In the 19th century, around three quarters of the world’s nibs and pens were made in Birmingham. At its peak, the city was exporting writing implements at a rate of billions of nibs a year, with factory workers expected to turn out 18,000 a day. Then came the ballpoint pen, signalling the decline of British pen-making: more than 100 billion have been sold since the introduction of the Bic in 1950. Add in the impact of computers and other tech, and the number of pen makers in Birmingham has dwindled from hundreds to just one. 

We want Yard O Led to be sitting in jewellers’ shops

Now that maker, Yard O Led, is staging a revival. Earlier this year, owner Emma Field sold a two-thirds stake to Nick and Giles English, brothers and co-founders of Bremont watches. The pair helped revive British watchmaking 22 years ago with Bremont and, with this move, they are looking to do the same for the pen industry. If you wanted to compare Yard O Led – so named after an early pencil design that held 12 3in leads – to a watch brand, “it’d be Breguet”, says Giles, seated in an airy room in the company’s workshop in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. “Yard O Led has not been on the high street in any real guise for many years but it’s very well-known in the pen market. It deserves to be one of the great pen brands.”

“People are starting to look at nicer writing instruments, not only for the beauty of them, but because they’re more environmentally friendly,” adds Field. “You don’t want to throw it away, you want to hold on to it; people are back into that idea.” 

To mark the new shared ownership, the company is releasing the Lucky pen and pencil, a design selected from the Yard O Led archive for its remarkable story. The Lucky is a remake of a pencil originally released in 1934, one of which saved the life of Lt Leslie March of the Cameron Highlanders in 1942 during the second world war. It was a wedding present from his wife Margot that he kept in his chest pocket, where it stopped a bullet that would have gone through his heart. He took the dented pencil with him everywhere as his lucky charm; but two years later, arriving on the Normandy beaches after D-Day in 1944, he was killed, hit by a shell, aged 23. The story of the pencil only came to light in recent years when March’s stepbrother, who had held it in his care after March was killed, got in touch with Yard O Led and donated it to its archives. Field shows me the pencil, its barrel kinked where the bullet struck. 

“We did all the drawings based on the bullet pencil because it’s the only one we have,” she says. The Lucky reissue, made in silver and gold vermeil, is a slender, four-sided instrument with delicate art deco pinstripes engraved on each face, tapering gently to the point. “It’ll be the first gold plating we’ve done in a good 30 years, and it’s done by Pete the polisher who works next door,” says Field.

Yard O Led will continue to make its classic line of pens too. Field presents me with a box filled with silver pens lined up like swords. Each is made to order by hand in the Birmingham workshop from start to finish, often by people whose parents worked for the company before them. In the hand, the silver warms to the touch and the pleasing heaviness allows it to balance perfectly on the crook of the thumb and forefinger. The ink flow and weight mean there’s no need to exert force on the point. Many surface details, such as the swirling design on the ostentatious Grand Victorian fountain pen, are chased by hand, a process that, unlike engraving, doesn’t remove the metal but reshapes it.

“We want Yard O Led to be sitting in jewellers’ shops next to Montblanc,” says Giles English. “We really want to grow,” agrees his brother. Field, meanwhile, believes these pens are going to be mainstream again. “People are going to pull out their pen as a talisman, and they’re going to have a story to tell.”

Word perfect

Choosing Keeping x Steve Harrison ceramic dip pen No 8, £1,800

Salt glaze potter Steve Harrison has collaborated with the cult London stationers Choosing Keeping on a desk collection. This ceramic and rose gold-plated silver calligrapher’s pen, featuring Harrison’s colour-dappled glazing, can be paired with a stoneware inkwell. choosingkeeping.com

Conway Stewart Series 58 Seamus Heaney fountain pen, from £399

Seamus Heaney wrote a poem in his final collection about a Conway Stewart fountain pen, with its “three gold bands in the clip-on screw-top”. The manufacturer has faithfully reproduced that design here in an edition of 250, finished at a workshop in Emsworth, Hampshire. conwaystewart.com

Cartier Santos de Cartier ballpoint pen, £1,080

The classic ballpoint pen is elevated with engraved deep-blue lacquering. The cap is inlaid with a palladium-finished moonphase motif reminiscent of the brand’s watch faces. cartier.com

Onoto Flying Scotsman fountain pen, from £625

To mark the 100th birthday of the Flying Scotsman steam locomotive last year, heritage maker Onoto produced a trio of pens inspired by the engine’s liveries. This apple-green design has bronze fittings made from metal taken from the Scotsman’s bronze axle boxes and a clip shaped like a locomotive connecting rod. onoto.com

Namiki Okita Geisha and Art of Tea Urushi fountain pen, £655

A portrait of an 18th-century Kansei geisha adorns the barrel of this pen. Each one is hand-finished with traditional Japanese lacquer work and sprinkled with gold dust. It comes with a generous, stubby ink pot. abask.com

Montblanc Writers Edition Homage To Jane Austen fountain pen, POA

Only eight models of this pen have been made, each as finely wrought as Jane Austen’s dissections of Georgian society. It features a lace and feather pattern, a turquoise-studded cone engraved with a set of dance steps, and Austen’s silhouette on the nib. montblanc.com

Breguet Tradition fountain pen, POA

This fountain pen of matte titanium and polished rose gold was designed in tribute to Breguet’s watches. The maker has thrown in some clever aesthetic nods to its timepieces – from the clip shaped like a watch hand to the guilloché border running along the barrel and lid. breguet.com

Gilbert House Pens Homerton fountain pen in Kenworth Truck Fordite, £325

Layers of dried paint collected from car factories are suspended in the red acrylic of this hand-turned pen. They’re made by Cambridge-based Gilbert House, and available to buy at the city’s weekly All Saints Craft Market. gilberthousepens.co.uk

Dunhill Sidecar ballpoint pen, £625

A glossy black ballpoint pen inspired by the curves of a 1930s Steib sidecar, it features a domed cap and a sleek embossed “AD” logo on the cap. Its midcentury lines would sit well with a green-shaded banker’s lamp on a Pierre Jeanneret desk. dunhill.com

Ajoto The Pen, from £150

Designed by minimalist stationer Ajoto, this graceful cylindrical ballpoint pen features a twist mechanism of four parts, all handmade in Manchester. Finishes range from brushed aluminium to a matt-anodised black. ajoto.com