What is one thing that you may almost find at all truck stops, convenience stores, grocery stores, ski resorts, lodging- hotels, motels, bowling alleys, video poker bars, night clubs, check cashing merchants, college campuses, high schools, entertainment parks, fast food restaurants, shopping malls……..phew and may be many more places? Not that I’m gonna give you anything for guessing the right answer! It’s the ATM – Automated Teller Machine to be precise. Whether you need dollars, euros, shekels, pesos or pounds, making a withdrawal from an ATM is generally the easiest and cheapest way to get cash. And if you have never thought beyond money, money, and money then allow me to throw some light on this money-wending machine. The world’s first ATM was installed in a branch of Barclays in Enfield, north London, 40 years ago this week. May god bless John Shepherd-Barron who then came up with the concept of a self-service machine which would dispense paper currency with 24/7 availability.

Inspiration had struck Mr Shepherd-Barron, now 82, while he was in the bath (that’s where most of us do some serious thinking!). “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” quotes Mr. Barron. As well as the ATM, he has also invented some less successful devices, such as one that plays the sound of a killer whale to deter seals from salmon farms.
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