In the 102 years since George S. Parker invented his first fountain pen, scores of people have written themselves into the history books using the implement with the unmistakable arrow clip. Puccini composed La Boheme and Madame Butterfly with a Parker; George Bernard Shaw used a Parker when writing Pygmalion; and similarly, Albert Einstein in composing his Theory of Relativity. The poems of Carl Sandburg, the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all flowed from Parker pens. If only, as one of Parker's competitors once claimed, a pen could indeed put "brains in your hand". At least one can be sure that with a Parker you are in good company - but then it would seem that virtually everybody at some stage of their life is destined to own a Parker. Along with Coca Cola and Kodak, Parker is one of the ten most-recognised brand names in the world.

Advertising and marketing executives have long revelled in the influence of public figures' use and endorsement of particular brands. When Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev took their seats at the Summit table in Washington in 1987 to sign the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, representatives of pen companies around the world were glued to their television sets, waiting anxiously to see which pen would be used to seal this historic step towards global peace. The then President and General Secretary signed their names to the treaty and then, to the desolation of some and the untold delight of others, turned to each other and exchanged Parker pens.

"It was an absolute coup!" says Peter Kibble, Parker's Area Director for Asia-Pacific and North America. "We have good connections with the White House and we had engraved two Parker 75's with the leaders' signatures for the occasion, but we were not sure if they would be used. I guess we were extremely lucky that they used our pens and then made the exchange. Within two days we had issued a world-wide press release which even made the newspapers in Russia where we don't actually sell any pens first hand".

Lucky perhaps, but Parker pens do seem to have an uncanny knack of turning up at the right place at the right time. This wasn't the first time that a Parker had ultimately proved mightier than the sword. On May 8, 1945, in his headquarters in Reims, General Eisenhower used his personalised Parker Pens inscribed with four General's stars to witness the surrender of the German High Command. A famous photograph shows the General and future President holding his two Parker pens to form a V for Victory sign for the world's press. Four months later aboard the U.S. battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay, General MacArthur put a full stop to Japan's bid for world supremacy, also with a Parker.

"Throughout the history of the Parker Pen Company we have always been involved in events of historical significance", says Urack de Traubenberg, Parker's Managing Director in Australia. "Not only has Parker been seen in the right places, we have always come up with the right products".

Whilst Parker pens have thus acquired a certain notoriety as instruments of peace, it is ironic that some of the most significant advances in the technology of writing instruments have resulted from the urgent necessities of war. "From its very infancy, the pen business has grown enormously every time there has been a war", says Peter Kibble. "Primarily because of the amount of correspondence conducting a war requires, but also because so many millions of men are stationed overseas, letter-writing to and from the front becomes an industry on its own. In the First World War the pen industry really blossomed and people got into the habit of writing letters until the next surge which occurred with the Second World War".

And Parker was there in the trenches commissioned by the U.S. War Department during the First World War to provide a "portable ink plant". Peter Kibble explains: "You couldn't carry bottles of ink with you into the trenches, so George Parker invented a pen to suit the situation. The doughboys, or infantrymen carried pellets of black pigment which they mixed with water in the barrel of the pen to make ink. This was the famous 'Trench Pen' which gave Parker an enormous boost".

With the Second World War came the invention of the ball-point pen, by a Hungarian-born navigator with the RAF. The fountain pens of the day did not function properly in the decreased air pressure at high altitudes and would leak and spot all over maps and co-ordinates crucial to a mission - which leads one to wonder whether the inadvertent destruction of a museum or palace may have been caused by the ink from an inferior pen! Experiments with paste inks as opposed to water-based inks solved the problem and led to the development of the ball point writing system. Of all the forgotten inventors who left an indelible mark on the world, we have a prime example in the Hungarian navigator, Mr. Biro.

It was this same frustration with inferior writing instruments that had led George Parker some sixty years earlier to invest his better writing system, in 1880. A telegraph operator on the railway in the American Mid-Western town of Janesville, Wisconsin, George Parker's proficiency with a quill saw him asked to tech the art of calligraphy to his fellow telegraphists. He soon became tired of illegible work and constantly having to repair his students' pens and within one year had attended his own pen with an improved ink feed bar. Three years later he incorporated the Parker Pen business in partnership with his life-long friend, insurance man, W.F. Palmer.

"Parker was formed from the vision that a Mid-Western farm boy could produce something that was better than anything else available", says Peter Kibble. "As well as being inventive, George Parker was also very adventurous and loved to travel. He would pack two suitcases - one containing his clothes and the other full of pens - and then set off to see the world. I don't think he ever imagined that his business would become the world leader.

"Wherever he went he made friends and gave them a pen as a gift saying, 'These are the pens I make and that is how our present world-wide system of distributorship was launched - purely from George Parker's curiosity to see the world. In 1917-18 he even journeyed up the Yangtze River in China, giving out his pens. So Parker became international very early and this explains why today Parker is the most international of all the pen companies. In Scandinavia, we have had the same distributor for almost ninety years, which is quite something considering the company itself is only 102 years old".

Having emerged even stronger from war-time production, George Parker returned to his objective to make the best writing instruments possible, and in 1921 with the release of the Duofold, he set a new benchmark by which all other fountain pens would be judged. In addition to superior writing precision, the Duofold had twice the ink capacity of anything else available. It was also twice the price at seven dollars! By 1925 the Duofold had helped quadruple the company's world-wide sales and a new manufacturing plant was built in Toronto, Canada, and a subsidiary company was opened in Newhaven, East Sussex, England.

In 1933 the "see-through" Vacumatic was introduced, incorporating for the first time, the Parker arrow-shaped clip. The Vacumatic would become Parker's best-selling pen until the launch of one of the company's all time best sellers, the Parker 51, in 1941. Sadly, George Parker died in 1937, leaving his sons Kenneth and Russell to continue the business.

"Even after George Parker's death, the company remained remarkably consistent, which is a tribute to George and the foundations he laid", says Urack de Traubenberg. "The Duofold had established Parker as the premier pen company in the world and the Parker 51 cemented that reputation. In fact the Parker 51 was judged by the Smithsonian Institute to be one of the ten best products of the 20th century". After ball pens were introduced in America following the Second World War, the Parker Jotter rocketed to the top of the market. Then came Parker's first cartridge pen, the Parker 45, and in the 1970's the Roller Ball. Today there are new products coming out all the time.

It has only been in the last few years that the future of the company as envisaged by George Parker has been questioned. In 1977, the temptation to diversify saw Parker acquire a small temporary help agency called Manpower. Parker management held high hopes for its future, but could not have predicted that within a very short time Manpower would become a billion dollar business - the largest temporary help agency in the world - and far larger than its parent company.

"Parker has grown up all over the world at different paces and with different strategies", recalls Peter Kibble. "While Manpower grew far beyond our initial expectations, the writing instrument group began to experience some difficulties and even lose some of its identity. In the United Kingdom, Parker had remained strong and in 1983 the U.K. Managers launched the Parker Premier Collection of luxury writing instruments which was extremely successful, and yet America followed only reluctantly. In 1985, the American Main Board decided to retain Manpower and sell off the writing instruments group and it was at that point in time that myself and a number of my colleagues in the U.K. got together, and with the support of some venture capitalists, bought the Parker Pen Company".

From its headquarters in Newhaven, England, the new firm set about re-instating Parker's prestige identity. Anticipating the company's 100th anniversary, towards the end of 1987 Parker launched the Duofold Centennial: a recreation of George Parker's famous fountain pen which was the most sophisticated writing system of its time. Likewise, today's Duofold incorporates the most advanced technology and durable materials, together with hand-crafted appointments and classic, elegant styling.

"The technology of the Duofold is probably the most advanced of any fountain pen in the world", says Urack de Traubenberg. "The barrel is diamond-milled from solid cast acrylic which is impervious to everyday wear, practically indestructible and if it should be scratched, over a period of time the scratch will dissipate and actually heal itself! The Duofold is appointed with 23-karat gold trim, gold plated to a depth of five microns which ensures that the highlights will retain their deep, mellow gold sheen for the owner's lifetime.

George Parker once said, "My pens can write in any language" - and indeed, much of Parker's research today is directed towards developing nibs which deliver perfect writing precision in any writing style. At present a total of thirty four nibs are available, from the broad stroking nibs often used for signing documents to the finest nibs which are especially popular in Japan and China as they are ideal for writing in script and characters.

"Fifteen years ago", says Peter Kibble, "people were saying that we were headed towards the paper-less office, and while it is true that people do not write as often as they once did, today when they do write they take more care and want to express themselves through their handwriting. A fountain pen is no-longer an essential item, but is seen as an aspirational product and calligraphy is recognised as an art. In Australia we have a club for owners of the top Duofold and we give them a customised service, helping them to select the pen nib which suits their handwriting, so we discourage people from lending their pens. We custom-make pens for accountants, musicians, left-handed people - we can customise a pen for just about any writing style".

Regardless of the extensive research that goes into the development of each model of the range, Parker can only go so far as to suggest the ways in which they can best be put to use. One industrious Parker representative who chose to follow in the footsteps of the company's founder, trekked into the highlands of New Guinea to present a gold Parker fountain pen to an influential tribal chieftain. The gift was formally received and then to honour the efforts of the gift-bearer, the chief decided to wear it through his nose, effectively giving it pride of place amongst the trappings of his traditional ceremonial dress!

From time to time, Parker holds in-store promotions with Graphologists who are employed for their ability to deduce character traits from a person's handwriting. "They won't tell you your future", says Peter Kibble, "but they can tell you certain things about yourself which are expressed through your handwriting". They may well assure you of one thing: that like the countless others before you, you re likely to produce your best work with a Parker!