Last night was the first in the season of talks on Charles Babbage. My deep thanks to all the members of the Crashbox and Classic Car Club who turned out to listen to my presentation about the brilliant, enigmatic and inventive Charles Babbage. Thanks you for welcoming me so warmly and responding with such interest... Continue Reading →
There’s a place for everything and everything in its place
‘Charles Babbage from the beginning’ starts off exploring who his ancestors were, what they did for a living and where in Devon they lived. Ancestry was something that Charles was immensely interested in. He found his own name amusing and unusual - which it was, there were very few recorded Babbages at this time. The first... Continue Reading →
PRESS RELEASE: Lucy is excited to announce that Charles Babbage from the Beginning is now published on SMASHWORDS! Activity has been frenzied with 20 downloads in the last two hours. Now you can download the ebook or buy the paperback edition from the following : Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lucysimister (ebook) Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/charles-babbage-from-the-beginning-lucy-may-simister/1122044648?ean=978151214919 7... Continue Reading →
Babbage: Much more than the computer
‘Charles Babbage from the Beginning’ is a book in three parts. Firstly it traces his Devon ancestors, where they lived and who they were. Part two is about his own life story and his family life, and part three about what inspired him to develop the computer, his work with Ada and the engineering beginnings... Continue Reading →
Not what you might expect…
Here is an odd thing when you are researching and writing the biography of a man like Keats: One of the questions that is, I suppose, forefront in your mind is “what kind of a person makes a great poet”. It is a generic question that is rendered redundant as soon as you begin to... Continue Reading →
Charles Babbage – you started it…
These are exciting times we live in I think. Hands up all those who regularly moan about technology and about how at the most inopportune moment it decides to let us down and refuses to co-operate. OK, everybody who has ever used technology you can put your hands down now. I confess I am also... Continue Reading →
What makes a writer?
Dickens’ parents were well off and educated and hailed from middle-class backgrounds, and in the beginning he enjoyed a good standard of living. He too was well educated, well read and enjoyed music and acting. He was an abrupt, excitable, impatient young man driven to succeed. But he would always be distressed by the humiliation... Continue Reading →
The Trouble with History
See, the trouble with history is that it is all done and in the past. Its value today is immeasurable – all those lessons we should have learned, all those people whose thoughts and lives have left messages for us to try to comprehend, all those events that were indispensible to our very existence today,... Continue Reading →
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