A: Schoolboy genius Turing was a genius at school. He once cycled 60 miles, on his own, so he didn’t miss the first day of term. While at school, Turing fell in love with another boy, who died in their final term at school. Alan was heartbroken. It was this loss which first made him question what it was to be human, and whether a machine could ever be intelligent – or even alive?

B: War hero The German U-Boats (submarines) kept sinking British ships. The Germans used a secret code called the Enigma to communicate with the U-Boats. Alan Turing was one of Britain’s best mathematicians. He worked at a top- secret intelligence base called Bletchley Park, near London. Turing cracked the code and saved our navy and supply ships from the U Boats. This was a turning point in the war. If they’d carried on sinking our ships, we may never have been able to defeat Hitler, and you might be speaking German!

C: Computer pioneer After the war, Turing worked at Manchester University, where he developed the world’s first computer. Without his research, there wouldn’t be any computers. Imagine what the world would be like without computers. (e.g., no computer games, , Facebook, Youtube, online shopping, Chatroulette…) At university, he developed the idea of Artificial Intelligence. For many years, building a machine which passed the ‘Turing Test’ was every computer scientist’s dream. The test simply said a machine was intelligent if you couldn’t tell it was a machine you were talking to.

D: Arrested for being gay In 1952, Turing’s ex-boyfriend broke into his house. Turing reported this to the police, but instead of arresting his ex-boyfriend they arrested HIM, for having a relationship with another man. The judge gave Turing a choice of either going to prison or taking hormone therapy. We know now that hormone therapy doesn’t work, and can actually make people ill. Turing became depressed. In 1954, Turing injected an apple with a poison called cyanide and took his own life. He was 41 years old.

E: Memorial  Today, in Manchester, there’s an area called the ‘gay village’ (the area where all the gay pubs are).  In this park, there’s a statue of Turing, sitting on a park bench, eating an apple. You can go and sit down next to him.  This is one of the few gay memorials in the country.  What else might Turing have invented if he’d lived another 41 years?

F: Memorial – ? What company makes iPods? [Apple] What’s special about the apple on the logo? [Bite missing] Lots of people say it represents Alan Turing’s cyanide apple. Apple deny it. The Apple logo used to have rainbow stripes, like the Lesbian and Gay Freedom Flag you see outside some pubs, but Apple started using a grey logo a few years ago.