It happens to the best of us: forgetting to bring just the thing we need for an important occasion. Well, it certainly happened to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who forgot his pen at the signing of the Golden Book in Cologne in 1963. Thankfully, then-US president John F Kennedy was by his side and averted a potential faux pas by reaching into his pocket and graciously offering his Montblanc Meisterstück 149.
Kennedy's gesture was simple, even instinctive. But it demonstrated how a writing instrument becomes more than a mere vessel of ink; symbolising alliance and camaraderie, and bearing witness to history in
