April 12th…

A day out yesterday in the chilly April air…

The Long man of Wilmington is not made of chalk like the Cerne Abbas Giant ( bagged both these guys now!). Neither does he show off his best bits like the Dorset giant. Wilmington long man is made of white painted bricks placed along the original design on the hillside which was once only visible in certain light conditions. If you get up close apparently his proportions don’t look so odd from below! We sat and admired him from afar and raised a glass to the preservation of enigmatic drawings on British hillsides.

Then we went hunting and I spotted…

None of which took my fancy. Then I saw this

And delved into my bag for some paper, and got to work manually moving the platen along as the drawband was broken. The mainspring was still intact and I pondered…

I’ve never typed on it handled one of these though I’ve seen a couple in better condition with much higher price tags in antique shops. It was nice to get intimate with it but its price was too high and they would only come down by a tenner!

Just not quite screaming “take me take me take me” I left it muttering to itself about its nice blue detail and the fact that it was a Special … ah well!