When old man Parry retired as Satco Valley in 1974, I cleared out his desk the day after his leaving do. John Lawes was driving from Tengah to Valley, in a Volvo with his wife and three kids to take up the post.
There were hundreds of them in his drawer. He had been in the habit of asking Sgt. Mitchell to provide him with one, on almost any occasion.
Most of them were returned to the Admin Office to be distributed as required, on production to Mitch, of a real need for it.
About a year later I was posted to Northern and didn't need one as the T82 tracked with store dots, then I went to Border and had to learn to write sideways, from both sides, on a huge flat top display. Writing backwards was easy, and I never had to do it apart from at Shawbury, but sideways...
I once had a day out from valley with the AAC (if the good lord had intended the army to fly, She would have made the sky brown) and the driver wrote times on the inside of the Souix bubble with his Chinagraph. I got him a few boxes of various coloured refills as payment for the day out in LFA10.
Nowadays I use a Bic ballpoint, which I have dipped in glue and wrapped a string around, then tied the string to my kneeboard.