The man who invented the cash machine

“It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK. I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.”

Plastic cards had not been invented, so Mr Shepherd-Barron’s machine used cheques that were impregnated with carbon 14, a mildly radioactive substance.

The machine detected it, then matched the cheque against a Pin number.

However, Mr Shepherd-Barron denies there were any health concerns: “I later worked out you would have to eat 136,000 such cheques for it to have any effect on you.”