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11/09/2009 by Steve Barclay.
News today that the Prime Minister has issued an apology to Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician and code breaker, for his treatment after the Second World War. Yet if Gordon Brown really does care, why has he ignored the 21,920 signatories to the Number 10 petition less than six months ago for extra funding to preserve parts of the historic Bletchley Park? The wooden hut where Alan Turing and others cracked the German enigma code and developed the modern computer is failing to bits. Can you imagine the United States letting such a historic landmark in their country be treated like this?
The news on the car radio was brought to life for me as I am up in the Scottish Highlands and visited the Culloden battlefield this morning. It made for an interesting contrast. There is a superb new Visitor Centre at Culloden, and it is well worth a visit if you are in the area. One negative however is that a road has been built through part of the battlefield which means the full scale of the battlefield is lost. No doubt at the time it was seen as not being worth the money to preserve the full scope of the battlefield - in fact for many years there was nothing even to mark the spot of the fallen in battle before the local landowner acted. Yet is this not what we are doing with Bletchley Park - preserving some bits of a heritage site but letting other bits decay and be lost to future generations?
I am sure Gordon Brown’s apology is heartfelt. The treatment of Alan Turing was terrible and his early death tragic. Yet without cash to preserve Bletchley Park, the apology risks being a gimmick which is more to appeal to voters than recognise Alan Turing. A better tribute would be to act to preserve where he worked, so that future school children can visit the simple wooden hut and appreciate first hand the brilliance that helped saved thousands of lives and shorten the Second World War. It might even encourage some to become future scientists - it is not as if our country does not need to develop more. Surely that would be a more fitting tribute to Alan Turing than a soundbite.
Posted in History, Labour Failure | No Comments »