In the 1950s, secretary Bette Graham from Texas was struggling to cope with her new electric typewriter.

“My fingers would hang heavy on the sensitive keyboard and the first thing I'd know, I'd have a mistake with a deposit of carbon which I simply couldn't erase,” she said.

A budding artist, she wondered if there was a way she could paint over her typos.

At home, in her kitchen, the single mum cooked up the first correcting fluid. It was a hit with other secretaries and, by 1973, Bette had turned her creation into a multi-million dollar business.

Bette died in 1980 so Vicky Farncombe tells her story using archive from University of North Texas Special Collections.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

(Photo: Correction fluid. Credit: Getty Images)