My friend and colleague Douglas Comish, who has died aged 97, was invited in the mid-1950s to join the small band of people that had established J Lyons & Co, the food empire best known for its Corner Houses, as the first company in the world not just to use but to construct an electronic digital computer to carry out the work of its clerical staff.
The Lyons management had the foresight as early as 1947 to recognise the need to improve their backroom clerical functions and had the wit to see the possibility of using computers.
