Alan Turing

[amateur51]

Breaking the Code is a 1986 play by Hugh Whitemore about Alan Turing. The play ran in London's West End beginning in November 1986 and on Broadway from 15 November 1987 to 10 April 1988. There was also a 1996 BBC television production (Wikipedia)

Here's the BBC television production

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23yie-779k

[Lateralthinking1]

To what extent was the hormonal treatment of Turing following his conviction commonplace? That is, in the sense of being enforced. I don't say that it was highly unusual but I doubt that it was the norm, any more than the conviction itself was the norm. Williams, Orton, Meek, Sewell, Thorpe, Heath, Burgess......none of these had hormonal treatment, nor the 20% plus of people in the theatre and at the heart of the Establishment who were gay. Many were at Bletchley Park and able to continue with their nationally sensitive work even when the vetting was increased. It was then more about Turing than his orientation.

I believe Turing was murdered. He hadn't been overly political and that might have been a significant issue. He could be seen as more susceptible to being politically persuaded. To the extent that he had any politics at all, they were vaguely leftish, his friends were more to the left, and it was a time of increasing paranoia in the Establishment about Communism. That was precisely why greater vetting had been applied. From what I gather from a brief reading, he had recently been asked by one influential individual to take on work against the Soviets. Intellectually, he was keen to do it. Others in the upper echelons might well have thought it a bad move, given the level of intelligence that could go across to an enemy.

They may have misread him. He was very much for freedom and the Soviets didn't represent that at all. I think though that one needs to look at the British character. Unlike the French, the Brits often see intellectualism as untrustworthy or suspicious. They see science and technology as particularly suspicious and even threatening to the existing order. From a class perspective, they are also most comfortable when they can pigeon hole people in what might be termed comparative power roles. Turing was extremely well-to-do. He worked at the heart of the Establishment. It would have seemed a little odd perhaps that he had no apparent ambition for acquiring a power in his profession that was fitting to his upper middle class background. For him, it seems the intellectual exercise was all. How bizarre. These days we must call it autistic.

So you have a highly individualistic person there with incredible powers of intelligence. He is someone who in unravelling the Enigma Code is able to see into the authoritarian nature of the Nazi regime in a way that others simply couldn't do. That was all considered wonderful until the post-war Brits regrouped and re-established their own kind of authoritarianism. Remember this is after Attlee and the Coronation. The concern must have been that if Turing could deconstruct the shield of the Nazis, then deconstructing the nonsense of the new British authoritarianism was a piece of cake. And, of course, he was in the place of work to do it. I think the conviction should be seen on that particular axis, bluntly a way of putting him in his place.

But then there is a dilemma. That very process leads to resentment in him of the British authorities. The personal becomes the political. The Communist threat in him then looms larger. Oh, and then one other thing about the Brits. Their gratitude tends to be short-lived. Ask David Beckham what he thinks about being prevented from getting an Olympics medal. Last, enigma. If in this country intellect was an enigma, science was an enigma, homosexuality was an enigma, individuality was an enigma, being upper middle class and yet not lusting for power was an enigma, then it made perfect sense to make the form of murder of potential turncoats enigmatic. In the case of one who had broken the Enigma Code, very much more so. So that apple thing was wholly predictable, to be easily dismissed by the public as an enigmatic suicide by the epitome of an enigmatic bloke.

[Northender]

Here's the BBC television production

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S23yie-779k

See Message #5 (!)

[amateur51]

See Message #5 (!)

Great minds, Norths - my apols for the dupe

[Northender]

Great minds, Norths - my apols for the dupe

Dear Miss Rutherford (didn't I see you the other day on the 4.50 from Paddington?), there's no need to apologize. I do urge anybody who hasn't seen it to do so, it's a first-class piece of TV drama.

[Tony Halstead]

Williams, Orton, Meek, Sewell, Thorpe, Heath, Burgess......none of these had hormonal treatment, nor the 20% plus of people in the theatre and at the heart of the Establishment who were gay

Might we have some given ( 'Christian' if you must) names, please, Lateralthinking1?
Other than the latter lack of full information, your posting is lucid and powerful.
Many thanks.

[amateur51]

Dear Miss Rutherford (didn't I see you the other day on the 4.50 from Paddington?), there's no need to apologize. I do urge anybody who hasn't seen it to do so, it's a first-class piece of TV drama.

How kind! Unfortunately that fillum was not one of mine

Ma petite oeuvre .....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Agatha-Christies-Miss-Marple-Collection/dp/B00012SYQY/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1342555529&sr=1-1

[Lateralthinking1]

Might we have some given ( 'Christian' if you must) names, please, Lateralthinking1?
Other than the latter lack of full information, your posting is lucid and powerful.
Many thanks.

Yes, thank you waldhorn for your good comments.

Kenneth, Joe, Joe, Brian, Jeremy, Edward and Guy although in the case of at least one of the seven the sexual orientation has not been considered by everyone to be clear cut. I therefore only used surnames.

It is important to add, now that I have included first names, that I did not specifically refer to the sexuality of any of them. I don't want some legal situation arising for the forum, very unlikely as that seems.

They were examples. I could have mentioned Anthony Blunt, Jimmy Edwards, Charles Hawtrey and Gilbert Harding. There were no doubt thousands of other similar people, most of whom were not famous. Some of the techniques being used in the 1950s on a wide range of people, including the mentally ill, were very extreme. The point I am making is that many well-known people with what was deemed to be an unlawful identity didn't, fortunately, experience them. That makes Alan Turing different.

[Vile Consort]

Not to mention John Gielgud, who was entrapped in a public lavatory in 1953. The night the story was in the papers, he was reluctant to go on stage lest there was an adverse reaction from the audience. When he missed his cue, Dame Sybil Thorndyke fetched him from the wings announcing "Ladies and Gentlemen, Sir John Gielgud!" whereupon he was cheered to the rafters.

[scottycelt]

Not to mention John Gielgud, who was entrapped in a public lavatory in 1953. The night the story was in the papers, he was reluctant to go on stage lest there was an adverse reaction from the audience. When he missed his cue, Dame Sybil Thorndyke fetched him from the wings announcing "Ladies and Gentlemen, Sir John Gielgud!" whereupon he was cheered to the rafters.

Quite obviously he and the Dame weren't appearing at the Glasgow Empire ...

[amateur51]

Quite obviously he and the Dame weren't appearing at the Glasgow Empire ...

It was in Liverpool I think, scotty where the scabrous tongues come allied with wit, quite a distinction

[Sydney Grew]

. . . They see science and technology as particularly suspicious and even threatening to the existing order. . . .

Much in the way assembly-language programming is discouraged - and is well on the way to becoming a black art - in our own day.

By the way the Welsh composer Daniel Jones also worked at Bletchley Park (see Grove's). And some of his music we are told reflects his "metrical experiments, which were influenced by his understanding of patterns and symmetrical shapes in nature (he kept a microscope for noting plant structures)." Now that recalls does it not Turing's interests towards the end of his life in morphogenetics (the development of living things). I wonder whether they knew each other and if so whether they discussed the subject over luncheon. Daniel Jones is not mentioned in Mr. Hodges's fascinating Turing biography.

[Northender]

Not to mention John Gielgud, who was entrapped in a public lavatory in 1953. The night the story was in the papers, he was reluctant to go on stage lest there was an adverse reaction from the audience. When he missed his cue, Dame Sybil Thorndyke fetched him from the wings announcing "Ladies and Gentlemen, Sir John Gielgud!" whereupon he was cheered to the rafters.

Entrapped - or just trapped? More than just a grammatical point, as the former implies he was set up whereas the latter suggests nothing more than carelessness or misfortune.

[Sydney Grew]

Entrapped - or just trapped? . . .

"Some people are so incensed by the idea of homo-sexuality that police methods that wouldn't be tolerated for a moment in other crimes are allowed when they are after queers. . . . Homo-sexual offences cannot, as a rule, be observed unless police traps or agents provocateurs are used." (Westwood, "A Minority" (1960))

[Tony Halstead]

Maybe this is just a trifling academic point, but, since the exact title of Gordon Westwood's book is
"A Minority: A Report on the Life of the Male Homosexual in Great Britain"
why does he use the hyphen in the sentence that you quote? ( "homo-sexual" and "homo-sexuality").
Is this a subtlety that requires an explanation?