Well this blog has been sitting ignored for years here so what better time to stir myself and activate it to write my Ada Lovelace Day blog about a woman scientist/technologist who has inspired me.
I'd like to talk about Judith Harris - my physics teacher at school. I was lucky to go to a brilliant girls grammar school in Bermonsey (SE London) - I'd applied Mary Datchelor school, a rather posh school that was just down the road from where we lived in Camberwell but I didn't get in. I had to go for an interview there, on my own, and they asked me what my father did - I got the impression that my reply 'I don't have a father' scuppered my chances but perhaps I'm being prejudiced....
But as it turned out the school I went to was great - a real mix of girls and though they didn't really push you they didn't stamp on initiative and waywardness. When I was the only girl in my year who wanted to do A level physics they didn't say 'Not possible, not cost effective' but worked out a solution - in the lower 6th I took physics with the upper 6th, and vice versa the next year. And that's where Mrs Harris came in - what great lessons they were. We'd talk about every subject under the sun and have great fun - and then she'd trust us to go and catch up with the work at home afterwards. She was interesting and fun. She took us to fantastic lectures at the Royal Institution, always going for coffee in the Kardoma (not sure about the spelling) Coffee House before the lecture. And she'd invite us round for dinner at her house - that's where this photo was taken. She cooked great meals, always too much. One time when there was a large pot of soup left over she commented that her husband would be having soup sandwiches for work for the rest of the week - at the time that had us in stitches.
She encouraged us and showed us repect, which we reciprocated - we felt like a real little community. So thank you Mrs Harris, you got me started on the rich path which has been my working life.
