Gay code breaker gets stamp honour

Famous mathematician and World War II code breaker Alan Turing is to be celebrated on a special stamp in Britain.

Often considered the father of modern computing, Turing devised the Turing Bombe, a codebreaking device that was used to decipher the Nazi enigma codes.

He is one of 10 prominent people chosen for the Royal Mail’s Britons of Distinction stamps to be launched in February 2012, which includes war heroine Odette Hallowes of the Special Operations Executive and composer Frederick Delius.

Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952, when homosexual acts were illegal in the UK, and sentenced to chemical castration. He killed himself two years later by taking cyanide.

In August 2009, a petition urging the British Government to posthumously apologise to Turing for prosecuting him as a homosexual received thousands of signatures.

Then Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged the petition, releasing a statement on September 10, 2009 apologising and describing Turing’s treatment as “appalling”.

In October last year, first-time screenwriter Graham Moore’s The Imitation Game – which followed Turing’s life story – was snapped up by Warner Bros in a 7-figure deal, outbidding half a dozen indie companies because it was reported that Leonardo DiCaprio had “the inside track” to play the lead role and was chasing the project.

First-time producers Nora Grossman and Ido Ostrowsky owned the rights to Andrew Hodges’ definitive biography Alan Turing: The Enigma and worked with Moore for more than a year to get the script right.

There were also reports that Ron Howard was interested in directing the project.