In Passing

Shepherd-Barron, ATM inventor

London – John Shepherd-Barron, the Scotsman credited with inventing the world’s first automatic cash machine, has died after a short illness. He was 84.

Shepherd-Barron died peacefully in northern Scotland’s Raigmore Hospital on May 15.

Shepherd-Barron once said that he came up with the idea of the cash dispensers after being locked out of his bank. He also said that his invention was inspired by chocolate vending machines.

“It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the U.K.,” he said in an interview with the BBC in 2007. “I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.”

The first automatic teller machine, now known as ATMs, was installed at a branch of Barclays PLC in a north London suburb on June 27, 1967.

Hank Jones, jazz pianist

New York – Jazz pianist and composer Hank Jones, whose 70-year career included a stint as Ella Fitzgerald’s pianist and Marilyn Monroe’s accompanist when she sang “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy, has died. He was 91.

Jones, who won a Grammy lifetime achievement award last year and received the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush in 2008, died May 16 at a New York hospital after a brief illness.

A tireless musician who performed his blend of swing and bebop until the end, Jones came from a family of jazz musicians.

Hank Jones played with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, Nancy Wilson, Lester Young, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

Robert J. Serling, aviation writer

Tucson, Ariz. – Robert J. Serling, one of the nation’s top aviation writers and the author of the best-selling novel “The President’s Plane Is Missing,” has died. He was 92.

Serling, the older brother of “Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling, died May 6 in a hospice facility in Tucson. He had been diagnosed with cancer five days earlier.

The former award-winning aviation writer for United Press International, Serling became UPI’s aviation editor in Washington, D.C., in 1960.

His numerous nonfiction and fiction books included the histories of Eastern, Western, TWA, Continental and American airlines. He also wrote “Legend and Legacy: The Story of Boeing and Its People” and co-authored former astronaut Frank Borman’s autobiography “Countdown.”