Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges Page B

in Rouen. Last monday we had scouts ν cubs it was rather exiting there was no weeks order this week I hope John likes Rouen I don’t feel much like writing much today sorry. Matron says John sent something.
    This provoked another couplet, about a fountain pen that ‘leaked enough for four’. Another letter in July, written in green ink which was (predictably) forbidden, described an exceedingly crude idea for a typewriter.
    John’s stay in Rouen was part of a general alteration in the Turing family arrangements. Before going to Marlborough, he had told his father that he would like a change from the Wards, and this was agreed. The parents found a Hertfordshire vicarage to be their home as from the summer of 1923. Meanwhile, at Easter, John had parted from his brother for the first time, going to stay with a Mme Godier in Rouen. This went quite well, and in the summer Alan (‘simply longing to go there’) went with him to imbibe the culture and civilisation of France for a few weeks. Alan made a great impression on the petit-bourgeoise Mme Godier. It was ‘ comme il est charmant ’ when he had been persuaded to wash behind the ears, and a telling-off for John if he had not. John loathed Mme Godier, and her fawning on Alan came as a relief, enabling him to slip off to the cinema. Both Turing boys, in fact, were singularly good-looking, with a subtle, vulnerable appeal; John rather the sharper, and Alan dreamier. The stay was not a great success. John had refused to take his bicycle this time because of the prospect of navigating wobbly Alan through the cobbled Rouen streets. So they were marooned listlessly in the maison Godier , or were obliged to take long walks. ‘Il marche comme un escargot ,’ declared Mme Godier of Alan, an observation which fitted Alan’s snail-like progress along the gutter, but also the Turing family’s picture of itself – that of the slow Turings, the gloomy Turings, always fighting on the losing side, and coming in last if not least.
    Much happier was the new home in Hertfordshire, to which the boyswent for the rest of the summer. It was the Georgian red-brick rectory at Watton-at-Stone, seat of the old Archdeacon Rollo Meyer, a charming and mellow man whose environment was that of the rose-bed and the tennis court, rather than the well-scrubbed, brisk discipline of the Wards. John and Alan both responded with joy, John to girls on the tennis court (he being fifteen and decidedly interested), Alan to being left alone, allowed to cycle in the woods and make his own mess as he pleased as long as he met minimum standards in the house. Alan’s standing also went up in Mrs Meyer’s eyes when a gypsy fortune teller at the church fête said that he would be a genius.
    The Meyers’ guardianship was shortlived, for Mr Turing suddenly decided to resign from the Indian Civil Service. He was angry at his rival, a certain Campbell who had come out with him in 1896 and had obtained a lower grade in the entrance examination, being promoted to be Chief Secretary to the Madras Government. So he abandoned his own chances of further advancement, and Alan’s parents never returned as Sir Julius and Lady Turing, * though they had the more tangible benefit of a £1000 per annum pension.
    It was not a return to England, for Alan’s father adopted a new role as tax exile. The Inland Revenue allowed him to escape the income tax if he spent only six weeks in the United Kingdom each year, so the Turings installed themselves in the French resort of Dinard, opposite St Malo on the Brittany coast. Henceforward the boys were to travel to France for Christmas and Easter vacations, while the parents would come to England for the summer.
    Technically, Mr Turing did not resign until 12 July 1926, and in the meantime he was on leave, the development of Madras somehow continuing without him. But he lost no time in establishing a new sense of economy. Mrs Turing had to submit accounts detailing the housekeeping