Vale Derrick Brown, a Truly Wonderful Typewriter Man

Australia lost one its finest typewriter gentlemen when Derrick Brown passed away suddenly on September 22 at the age of 82.  A former Olivetti service manager, Derrick had been based in Brisbane, Queensland, for the last 52 years of his life. After retiring from Olivetti, Derrick made a living by shipping in typewriters from overseas, beautifully restoring them and selling them on eBay under the name “carsstag”.

Derrick was born in York, England, in 1938. When he was nine, in 1947, his father, Norman Brown, a sergeant major with the West Yorkshire Regiment, was posted to the Garrison in Bridgetown, Barbados. Derrick spent the next seven years in the West Indies. After his family returned to England in 1954, Derrick, at age 16, began a five-year typewriter apprenticeship in Bradford, Yorkshire.

Derrick married in September 1968 and he and his wife Mary came to Australia as assisted migrants (known as “10 Pound Poms”). They arrived in Sydney but Derrick was relocated to Brisbane by Olivetti. From 1985 Derrick and his family lived in the Lockyer Valley region. He owned typewriter stores in Brisbane and Gatton, and finally in Archerfield, which is where I first met Derrick in August 2010. Derrick retired the next year, at age 73, but “kept his hand in” with typewriters until his dying day.

One of Derrick’s five daughters, Denise, told me, “He continued his passion of restoring typewriters, [but] only since Dad has passed have I understood the extent of his meticulous work and the appreciation of his clients. Just before he passed, he restored two machines that went to two lovely children. They both wrote to Dad and expressed how helpful and kind he was and the joy the typewriter brought them as budding writers-poets. Regrettably, these letters arrived the day after he passed, but I am sure in some way he knows. I had no idea that typewriters can still bring so much joy and clearly still have a place in our fast paced and technical world.”

Derrick made a lifelong contribution to the typewriter industry. I had many dealings with him over the past decade, and always found him to be incredibly kind, massively knowledgeable and extremely helpful. Derrick was enormously skillful in the work he did with typewriters, and was full of sound advice for people such as myself. At our first meeting I bought from Derrick a New Yost, a Hammond and a Noiseless portable. In the ensuing years I bought such fantastic additions to my collection as a pristine Corona 3,  a Fox standard, a burgundy Corona Silent, an Olympia Elite and a highly unusual Piccola in a Corona 3 mask (which I later gave to Peter Weil in Delaware). Derrick also gave me a bilingual Erika 5.

Derrick is survived by his wife Mary and their five daughters, Denise, Jackie, Susan, Samantha and Dionne.