PICTURE the scene. In the drawing room of a country vicarage, a parson is writing his sermon. The year is 1700. The French are making threatening noises across the Channel and the great victories of the Duke of Marlborough have yet to be fought. However, our bewigged cleric is more concerned with issues of a pastoral nature, and so he gazes out across the summer lawns seeking inspiration before he puts his fountain pen to paper.

A fountain pen? Surely the Rev Thomas Turner, vicar of Blockley would have used a quill? Well no, as it happens. For it appears that our obscure man of the cloth was in fact using what must have been early 18th Century cutting-edge technology when he ruminated on the meaning of life and mortality.

For thanks to the sterling research work of his present-day fellow cleric the Rev Noel Staines, we have learnt that our priest from the time of William and Mary is responsible for the earliest reference to a fountain pen. Not only that, but we also discover that the first time an alarm clock is mentioned was an astonishing three years earlier, thanks to Thomas Haughton of the Worcestershire village of Feckenham.

This newspaper has an uncanny feeling that not only should we change our perception of how our forebears lived, but perhaps history as a whole requires closer scrutiny. For who knows what else lies undiscovered in the vaults of time? Mind you, the possibilities might not be endless. We doubt very much that a Tudor digital watch will ever emerge -- nevertheless, we're sure Mr Staines will keep us posted.