The Biro is 70

Biro pen, invented by Laszlo Biro, turns 70
By John Bingham

Arguably the most important invention for the written word since the printing press, the humble biro pen is 70 years old.

Invented by Hungarian Laszlo Biro, the simple plastic ballpoint, owes its existence at least in part to the RAF.

Britain's airmen placed the first ever bulk orders for the implement during the Second World War.

They asked for more than 30,000 biros so that navigators could write at high altitude where fountain pens tended to leak.

Biro, a some-time journalist who had become increasingly agitated by splattering fountain pens, first hit on the idea in a Budapest printing shop when he saw an ink which dried almost as soon as it touched paper.

He later recalled: "It got me thinking how this process could be simplified right down to the level of an ordinary pen."

Working with his brother George, a chemist, he adapted the ink to make it thin enough to work in a ballpoint pen.

In the end the pair came up with the biro's distinctive nib, containing a tiny ball bearing which rolls as the pen moves.

Unlike earlier ballpoints it uses a pressurised tube rather than gravity.

Biro took out a British patent on June 15, 1938.

Forced to flee Hungary at the outbreak of the war the next year, he began production in Argentina in 1944.

The pen which now costs just a few pence originally retailed for the equivalent of £27.

Originally named the "Eterpen" it soon received its first bulk order from the RAF.

More than 100 billion have since been sold and last year the leading manufacturer Bic sold 216 million in Britain alone.