In the Comments section, Piers Beckley wrote of his old electronic typewriter: “I loved it, because it meant I didn’t have to tippex or retype when I miskeyed… Finally got rid of it a couple of years ago after I realised I hadn’t plugged it in for more than a decade and was never going to again.”

Ah, Tippex… in my day I must have bought enough of it to pay for Mike Nesmith’s swimming pool. I used to get it wholesale, by the box.

When I finally decided let go of my massive office-sized Adler, someone in the Crime Writers’ Association was gathering unwanted typewriters for remote regions where they could still be put to good use. I drove it over to Robert Barnard’s house in Yorkshire and took my daughter along for the ride. She’d be about six, I guess.

It was a summer Saturday and on the way back we stopped for some lunch in Ilkley and took a rowboat on the river. When it came time to hand it back I somehow managed to tip it and put us both in the water. Kid came home in a whole new outfit.

Happy days.