Eva Bradley: Pen mightier than sword but it has met its match

In Standard Four I was among the top of my class at handwriting, writes Bradley.

Recently I found myself in need of a pen. It was an everyday sort of conundrum, presumably easily solved after a brief rustle in the bowels of the handbag or bottom drawer in the kitchen.

The trouble is, both of these searches proved fruitless. The closest I got was finding a pen that had dried up and didn't work, which didn't count.

At some point since I last used that pen, it became obsolete.

Given that pens of a sort have been in existence ever since a caveman picked up a charred stick from the fire and drew a grizzly bear on a wall, I felt this was quite a significant discovery, and one with far-reaching implications.

The first of these (once I extended my search area and did finally locate a working pen) was that I couldn't really write any more.

I had 40 wedding thank-you cards to write and after I'd poorly executed the first half-dozen, my hand cramped up.

It seemed I was no longer "pen fit".

To extend the metaphor, it was also evident that my first six thank-you efforts were the workout-equivalent of a grossly overweight gaming enthusiast who had been wedged off the couch and into a cross-fit class for the first time in 10 years. That's how bad my writing looked.

This was a particular blow since in Standard Four I was among the top of my class at handwriting and often got the coveted pleasure of being allowed to stop practising my linked letters and work on block letters instead.

Sadly, I suspect if I were forced to compare my handwriting with 9-year-olds now, the main letter featuring on the page would be a big red "F" for fail.

The Qwerty keyboard has been in use since 1872, but it is only since the widespread adoption of the computer (and more insidiously, the smartphone) that we have come to rely on it to the point that using a pen is becoming the exception rather than the rule.

Looking back, I suppose I consider the day I ditched my paper diary in favour of iCal to be the seminal moment in the pen's obsolescence in my life.

That was four years ago and since then not only have I forgotten how to write well, I've also forgotten how to remember, since my phone now alerts me to everything about to happen in my life, absolving me of any accountability beyond keeping my phone fully charged.

After that I started to write shopping lists on my smartphone instead of on the back of envelopes (which is just as well since thanks to the parallel shift of correspondence from paper to digital form, envelopes are becoming as rare as pens).

On reflection, the moment the death rattle of the pen was truly heard was when I left for work before my husband on a rare occasion and instead of leaving him a little "I Love you, have a great day" note for him on the bench, I tapped out "luv u, hv a gr8 day" in a text instead.

The sad thing is that I still have a dusty collection of all the little notes and love letters hand-written to me in my youth, but all the ones from the one who matters are unlikely to endure.

While I've occasionally taken photos of the particularly awesome texts I get from my husband, usually they end up in some digital black hole (otherwise known as iCloud).

I do believe the pen is mightier than the sword, but sadly in the battle between pen and keyboard, the keyboard appears to have triumphed.

Eva Bradley is a columnist and photographer.