FRED MORRISON, a pilot and carpenter credited with inventing that most ubiquitous of backyard toys, the frisbee, has died at his home in Monroe, Utah, aged 90.

The inspiration for Morrison’s flying-saucer toy came when he and his girlfriend were entertaining themselves by tossing a popcorn-tin lid in the backyard.

The lid eventually became dented, and a cake pan from Morrison’s mother’s kitchen was substituted.

One day when the couple were playing on the beach, a stranger offered them a quarter for the device. “That got the wheels turning,” Morrison told a reporter in 2007.