Hello, welcome to the witness history podcast from the BBC World Service, with me, Rachel

Naylor.

I'm going to take you back 85 years to when the ballpoint pen was invented.

I've been speaking to the inventor's daughter.

Ideal for chewing, ideal for writing.

It's a shaft of transparent plastic and with the characteristic tuable cap.

Very, very, very few changes have been made to it.

The only change which has occurred, which is for health and safety regulations, originally

the cap had a little point on it, but they recently had to cut it off, so if you should

swallow the cap, you can now breathe as well.

That was Stephen Bailey, the first CEO of the design museum in London, singing the praises

of the Humble Biro to the BBC in 2005.

Despite being invented in 1938, like he said, little has changed in his design since,

and today an estimated 15 million are sold every day around the world, but where did

they come from?

Our story starts in the 1930s and we're in Budapest in Hungary.

Last low b-ro is working as a reporter at the Alora newspaper and he's sick of getting

ink from the fountain pen on his hands.

Every time he tried to write down whatever was said to him, but he spent spotting ink

and he gave him trouble or he wouldn't dry, or it would dry up.

And he saw how the newspaper is printed.

They had this roll and the roll would roll on the paper and the ink would flow and the

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