My father, otherwise a very accomplished man, never learnt how to type properly. However, he compensated for a lack of skill with an intensity of application. As children, we would hear him behind the door of his study, pecking away at his Remington typewriter using only his two index fingers. In the afternoons, it would be a gentle, relaxed clicking, interrupted every 20 seconds or so by the merry chime of the carriage return bell.