Posted:  Friday 5 February 2010

South East Associates
Ripley Walk

- Tuesday, 12th January -

Thirteeen Associates and friends turned out for a delightful walk in the woods and countryside around the Royal Horticultural Society site at Wisley.

We walked along the River Wey and the Wey Navigation, read poetry ("..for whom the bells tolls.." and "no man is an island..") across the Wey from the house of John Donne; skirted the R H S Wisley site, and rested outside Ockham Mill. 

Featured in the Domesday Book of 1086, Ockham was home to William of Ockham - the famous philosopher who propounded Occam's Razor - a philosophical conundrum; and in the nineteenth century, Ada Lovelace - the world's first computer programmer!
The first Earl of Lovelace lived at Ockham, and married Ada Byron in 1835 - the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron.  Her fame, however, came in a very different area. 

Her image was seen in the authenticity holograms on early Microsoft products, since in many respects the first modern computer is said to have begun in Ockham.  She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage's 'Difference Engine' using punch cards inspired by the recently introduced automatic looms.
Today, there are computer languages called ADA and OCCAM, and the British Computer Society award the Lovelace Medal annually.

After such poetic, philosophical and scientific insight, the Associates were glad to lunch at The Anchor on Pyrford Lock.

Kevin Williams

(ph  05/02/2010)

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