Stamp of Approval

Venice has been famous for hand-made marbled paper over many centuries, and you can still find little shops there selling this and other gorgeous artisan paper, pens and stationery.  I could spend forever browsing in them.  On my first visit to Venice many years ago, I had this wooden stamp personalised with my initials in a tiny shop beside a canal somewhere behind the Gallerie dell'Accademia.  I also bought an ink pad in a decorated tin to go with it, which is still perfectly usable after all these years.  I keep them on my coffee table, and sometimes stamp my "insignia" in the flyleaf of favourite books.


Whenever I think of stationery, I remember working with the late actor Leo McKern in the mid 1980's on a Radio 3 production of Plato's "The Last Days of Socrates".  He always looked so fierce and grumpy on TV in "Rumpole of the Bailey", so I was a little apprehensive of meeting him for a week of recording this very difficult piece.  He was alone in the studio when I arrived on the first day, poring over his script and adding to the already densely-packed notes he'd written in pencil down the margins.  He had his back to me, and I coughed nervously as I approached and asked if he'd like a cup of tea.  My heart sank as he appeared to ignore me!  Then I remembered being told that, due to an industrial accident, he was completely deaf in his left ear and had a glass eye.  So I went round to his right side and tried again.  He looked up and gave the biggest smile.  "Hello petal, a cup of tea would be lovely".  Leo proved to be a delight, and sometimes popped into the control cubicle of our drama studio between scenes.  Once, he spied all my coloured felt-tip pens (used to mark different takes of the same scene), and couldn't resist trying them out one by one on the back of the script.  "I love pens and paper" he said, scribbling away like a contented schoolboy - "I could quite happily open a stationery shop!".  Lovely man, and fond memories of my days working with the greats in BBC Radio Drama.