Paddy Sandford-Johnson, who has died aged 92, was a systems specialist in early computers and a Wimbledon tennis umpire. He was both multitalented and quick-thinking.
His first job was as a salesman at Unilever, but he moved to IBM in 1957, when only a dozen or so British companies used computers. On realising the impact this new technology would have, “systems” became his byword. Over the next 25 years he developed computer strategies for major corporations and governmental bodies – from the Royal Parks to Premium Bonds to the Royal Naval Stores. During a year in Liverpool he set computers up for the regional hospital board and its 35 hospitals, and later spent a year in Belfast at Gallaher, at the time the world’s largest tobacco company, changing sales and stock control methods.
