I Think You Know Why I’m Calling You

John Gra­ham-Cum­ming recounts his suc­cess­ful efforts to have the British gov­ern­ment for­mal­ly apol­o­gize for its treat­ment of Alan Tur­ing:

On the bus home I heard direct­ly that Alan Tur­ing’s nieces had many mem­o­ries of their Uncle Alan. They even still had his ted­dy bear. I hung up and sat at the back of the bus and cried qui­et­ly. I had always felt that Alan Tur­ing’s treat­ment was appalling, but to hear the fam­i­ly speak of the man was too much. I was con­vinced that I had to see my cam­paign, which had start­ed on an impulse, to its completion. 

Gra­ham-Cum­ming did all this in a lit­tle more than a month and as he states “most of it from the top of a red Lon­don dou­ble-deck­er bus using an iPhone.” I’m per­son­al­ly thrilled at his suc­cess as it has been a long time com­ing. Whether we know it or not, Tur­ing played a large part in all of our mod­ern lives and cer­tain­ly the recent his­to­ry of Britain. 

By Jason Coleman

Structural engineer and technical content manager Bentley Systems by day. Geeky father and husband all the rest of time.

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