Receipt

Are you receiving me?

While I was pampering myself with rich, decadent, Truefitt and Hill shaving cream this morning, I heard an item on the radio about how British shoppers will need to inspect their receipts carefully in coming weeks if, as is suspected, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announces today that VAT is to be cut from 17.5% to 15% in an attempt to stave off the recession. We will need, said the reporter, to check that we're not being overcharged.

Coincidentally, I found myself scrutinizing a receipt towards the end of last week, dear readers, thus proving yet again that I am streets ahead of received trends. The slip of paper in question is displayed above, with certain details (to which I will refer in time) obscured. Tax, however, was not taxing my mind.

I left for work on Thursday morning feeling decidedly underdressed. Regular readers of Ink Quest will know that I have recently developed an obsession with silk pocket squares; I now find that I am simply unable to wear a suit without a flourish flamboyantly flaming from my breast pocket. I faced a traumatic difficulty that day, however, for I was desperate to wear for the first time a tie that I had bought a few days earlier, but I suddenly realized that I had no pocket square to flaunt alongside it. The rule, I have learnt, is that the silk should not match the main colour of the tie, but should, rather, echo one of the background shades. As my new tie has small white spots, I realized that a white pocket square was required, and I decided to call into the centre of Cardiff to purchase such an object on my way to work.

As I stood on the platform and then sat on the train, I felt that a part of me was missing. My briefcase contained the habitual three fountain pens, each filled with a different shade of ink, so all was well in that respect, but my square-free pocket felt achingly empty. Devoid of square, I was even more of a square peg in a round hole than usual.

When I stepped off the train at Cardiff Central, I began to weigh up my options. Where, I asked myself, would be the place most likely to sell white silk pocket squares? Ruling out all of the hip and trendy clothing outlets, I set my sights on the least fashionable place in town: Calders. Here is a store so defiantly archaic that it has no website. Here is a store that has not changed a jot in as long as I can remember. (A quick Google search reveals photographic evidence that it stood on Churchill Way until at least the mid-1960s, but my memory, which goes back no further than the 1970s, knows nothing but the present Duke Street location.) Here is a store that sits stubbornly across the road from Cardiff Castle, mocking the battlements for their hollow modern stylings. Here is a store whose survival in the twenty-first century is something of a miracle.

I don't know how much longer Calders will last, for the ground floor was completely deserted when I walked through the doors on Thursday morning. I was, as a result, immediately approached by one of the shop's magnificently polite and helpful assistants, who showed me a selection of white silk pocket squares. I made my choice and handed over my debit card. It was it this point that one of the most gloriously anachronistic processes that I have seen in quite some time sprang (well, tortoised) into action.

Instead of taking my card over to the computerized device that I could see on one of the other counters, the assistant produced a old-fashioned receipt book and began to write on one of the slips. I watched in amazement as he noted the price and description of the item, then added my name to the top of the receipt, and even copied out the number and expiry date of my card in full. Only when this meticulous work was over did he walk slowly across to the machine, swipe my card, and ask me to enter my PIN. I was then given the two receipts and thanked for my custom.

In an age where speed and ruthless efficiency in the marketplace are valued, the Calders approach to receipts is refreshingly, defiantly slow and inefficient. Let me be perfectly clear: I mean this to be received as a glowing compliment. I love the fact that the shop continues to issue handwritten receipts in the era of quickly printed slips. I love, too, how it effectively invites its customers to choose which format they think is better; there's simply no need for two receipts, after all. (The assistant did seem slightly uncomfortable with the computerized device, so I think I know where his affections lie.)

I have just one complaint, and here, dear readers, is where ink finally makes its dawdling entrance. As you can see in the image of the handwritten receipt displayed above, the assistant completed the slip in ballpoint pen. While I have nothing but admiration for the shop's archaic system, and while I (unlike some of my chuckling colleagues) am very happy with my new pocket square, I was very disappointed to learn that this temple to tradition permits the use of the modern monster that is the biro. Why pollute a store that makes so few concessions to the post-war period with a recently invented writing instrument? Why not slow things down and roll back the wheel of history even further with fountain pens and inkwells upon the counters? Why not complete each receipt with a nib cut to imitate script from earlier times? Why not acknowledge a purchase with an ink that gives the impression of dusty antiquity? (Diamine Indigo would work rather well, I feel.)

My dictionary inkforms me that an archaic meaning of 'receipt' is 'recipe'. This seems fitting, as Calders has, in my opinion, just one ingredient out of place in its current recipe for retail. Almost everything is perfect: its clothing takes no account of developments in fashion since about 1962 (here be no leisurewear); its staff, unlike assistants in virtually every other shop in Britain, actually seem to know something about the stock; and, above all, it issues handwritten receipts. All that is missing is the real ink. I would email the store a link to this undoubtedly helpful post, but, as the business has no presence on the web, I doubt that it would be in a position to acknowledge receipt.

Inks in use today: Noodler's Nightshade; Caran d'Ache Grand Canyon.