carbon-14, matched the cheque against a PIN and paid out the cash. It is widely accepted that the Shepherd-Barron ATM was the “world’s first” when it comes to being installed and used by the public; the first one, at a bank in north London, was opened on 27 June, 1967 – a month before Goodfellow’s ATM made its public debut. However, the patent for Goodfellow’s machine was lodged on 2 May, 1966, 14 months before the London ATM machine came into service. The rivalry between the two men bubbled up when Shepherd-Barron received an official honour for his achievement. Goodfellow says: “My one big regret is that I never said anything about it until John Shepherd-Barron received the OBE in 2005. This honour was granted on the basis that he was the inventor of the automatic cash dispenser. That really stuck in my throat and I kicked up a bit of a fuss.” Shepherd-Barron is no longer alive to put his case but, in a 2005 interview, he was fairly withering about his rival: “I don’t know him but it’s clear that the difference between Goodfellow and us was that we thought through the whole system concept and that was important to the banks who bought it. His invention reminds me of the hovercraft, an elegant failure.” The cash machine has become a world-conquering piece of technology and nothing – the contactless revolution, bitcoin, wearable technology, etc –