Fran Whiting: A handmade pen holder is my greatest gift

Out of all the gifts readers have given me over the years – this is the one I truly treasure.

What’s your favourite gift?

Out of all the gifts readers have given me over the years – and honestly they’ve been a bit thin on the ground lately, I’m not hinting, I’m just saying some of you could step up – there is one I truly treasure.

It was sent to me by a reader in the year 2000 (remember 2000, the year we all thought the world as we knew it would end because of the Y2K bug, and then it didn’t?) – well, it was sent to me then and has lasted a lot longer than the Y2K panic did, that’s for sure.

It is a handmade pen holder, made of wood, shaped like a miniature tree stump with holes in it for my pens. It is dark brown, with amber streaks, rough to touch and really lovely. It also has the maker’s name engraved at the bottom, the month and year – May, 2000, and the words ‘Coolibah, Diamantina’.

Now, the maker’s name is obscured, I think it says Elmer or Elmo – and I would very much like to write to him. I would like to let him know that his beautiful, hand made gift of 25 years ago is still going strong, and has seven pens nestled in it as we speak.

I want to let him know – or his family or friends know – that while I have thrown out many, many things in the quarter of a century since he sent me this gift – plastic things, faddish things, things I thought I needed and didn’t – I have kept his thing of beauty and work of craftsmanship on my desk beside me, pens at the ready. It has given me joy for all these years, and that is no small thing.

And this, my column reading sleuths, is where you come in. Now, over the years we – and by ‘we’ I mean you – we have solved many, many mysteries, including the hunting down of a very specific yellow trumpet for my then three year old, the store location of the last known Elsa doll in Queensland at the height of Frozen mania, and why Colin Firth hasn’t married me. And to the many of you who have helped me solve that last mystery, you are right, I am too good for him.

In the meantime, if anyone knows of, or knew of, an Elmer or Elmo who lived or frequented the Diamentina region of Queensland in the 2000s, or if you are indeed Elmer, or Elmer, reading this, please get in touch. I would love to send you a photo of your gift on my desk, and look, if you wanted to hand make me some sort of wooden document holder to go with it, I wouldn’t say no. What? I’m just saying a matching set would be nice.

I’m also saying that in the year 2000 when everyone thought our computers would crash, there is a large part of me that wouldn’t have missed them, or at least enjoyed the chance to take a break from them. I would miss Elmer’s or Elmo’s or whoever made my pen holder far more should I ever lose that.

So, if anyone can help, let me know, and if anyone knows Elmer or Elmo, can you let him know thank you from me? Also that I wouldn’t mind a matching photo frame.

FRAN LOVES: I’m on a bit of a mission to read old classics that I’ve somehow missed. I’m currently halfway through the romp that is Around the World in Eighty Days, and loving it!

Originally published as Fran Whiting: A handmade pen holder is my greatest gift