Out of Our Neanderthal Trees

Original Neanderthal skull. Photo Don Hitchcock, donsmaps.com

Family history research has come a long way since I began looking into my own ancestry in 1978. In those days the only resources accessible were parish registers in records offices or microfilm copies in large libraries. Today there’s the internet and many records are reproduced online. Family history research has never been so easy - or so easy to get wrong. Too many inexperienced researchers rely on false information that other inexperienced researchers assume to be correct rather than look for themselves.

One innovation of the 20th century is becoming increasingly popular – DNA testing. People can now discover where their ancestors were living before there were written records. DNA has also helped to identify new species of prehistoric human, or hominid. Before DNA the most well-known ancient hominid was Neanderthal Man, and in recent years Neanderthal DNA has been found in us. This has led to the obvious conclusion that our early ancestors interbred with Neanderthals.

While it’s something that is still being researched we should give a nod to the openly bisexual Swedish scientist who was the first to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome. His name is Dr. Svante Pääbo (b.1955).

In his book “Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes” Svante chronicles the long search for Neanderthal DNA. He includes events in his personal life that occurred along the way, making it a sort of autobiography. A handful of references mention his sexuality and falling for the wife of a colleague and eventually marrying her.

Whether genetics influences a person’s choice of career in doubtful, but Svante has the right scientific family background to become a geneticist. His father was Sune Bergstrom, who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in 1982. His mother was Karin Pääbo, an Estonian chemist.

Svante studied medicine and biochemistry at Uppsala University, helping research into human DNA and the immune system and the effects of diseases, not unlike the HIV research being carried out by Dr. Devin Sok. But it wasn’t medicine and biochemistry that took Svante to Uppsala. It was archaeology. It was after two summers of unexciting excavation work that he decided on a change of subject. Inspired by his father he turned to medicine.

With the intention of becoming a medical practitioner Svante joined the lab of a professor who had been leading the way in cloning DNA of molecules in immune cells. His doctoral theses was on the subject. Yet throughout his work Svante retained his life-long interest in archaeology, particularly Ancient Egypt, and one thought struck him – could DNA survive in ancient Egyptian mummies?

Spurred on by this thought Svante rummaged through libraries and academic journals to find out if anyone had found ancient DNA. They hadn’t. So, like a red rag to a bull, Svante set off on a hunt for an Egyptian mummy. He obtained several pieces at a museum in Communist East Berlin and took them back to Uppsala.

With some excitement Svante discovered enough DNA to offer science the possibility of reproducing a whole ancient Egyptian genome in the future. He published his results in 1985. By being the first to publish research into pre-modern DNA Dr. Svante Pääbo had “invented” the science of palaeogenetics.

In 1990, with his own lab and professorial position in Munich, Svante embarked on the search for even older human DNA. By this time other scientists had joined the hunt. Some even went further and looked for DNA in prehistoric insects trapped in amber millions of years ago. If you’re a fan of “Jurassic Park” thank Svante Pääbo for kickstarting the whole dinosaur DNA thing (not that he approves of the idea himself).

In 1991 Svante “met” someone I wrote about several years ago, Ötzi the Iceman. Unsure of how old Ötzi was – did he die 100 yeas ago of 1,000? – Svante’s lab was asked to sample the Iceman’s DNA. They discovered that Ötzi’s DNA confirmed suspicions based on the object found with his body that he lived over 5,000 years ago.

Finding Neanderthal DNA was the next step. The first Neanderthal bones were discovered in 1856. They belonged a new Homo species and evolved from a common ancestor to us – Homo sapiens sapiens – about half a million years ago. The Neanderthals became extinct about 30,000 years ago. Svante was actually allowed to test a sample from one of those first Neanderthal bones, such was his reputation in this field of work. Headlines appeared around the world when the news was released in 1997 that DNA had been successfully extracted from a Neanderthal bone.

Nine years later Svante was ready to replicate the genome of a Neanderthal. I followed the story at the time, palaeontology being one of my other interests, so I was very pleased to find in my files the article (below) which proclaimed that Svante had successfully reproduced a Neanderthal genome in 2009.

What took Svante and geneticists by surprise was that 2% on European and Asian DNA contains Neanderthal-specific genes. In Svante’s words “Neanderthals were not totally extinct”.

But Svante’s work hasn’t stopped there. His team were asked to test a finger bone that had been discovered in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. It turned out to be a previously unknown Homo species that was named Homo denisova. It showed that three human species – sapiens (us), Neanderthals and Denisovans – co-existed in Siberia 30,000 years ago. Further research found that Denisovan DNA survives in 5% of human DNA in people in the area between Burma and northern Australia.

Svante Pääbo’s pioneering palaeogenetic research has led to a new understanding of human origins. It now seems that some early humans who migrated out of Africa interbred with Neanderthals of eastern Europe, and with Denisovans in central Asia, passing parts of their DNA down to you, me and almost everybody with European-South Asian ancestry.

One intriguing future direction for palaeogenetics is research for a cure for HIV. The Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in humans carries left-overs genes from ancient viral infections. About 90% of all DNA, even ours, is “junk” – it isn’t used to produce anything, it just sits there in the genome waiting to be passed on to the next generation.

Those ancient viral remains are part of this “junk”, However, they belong to the same virus family as cancer and HIV. Very occasionally several pieces of junk-virus combine to produce cells which in turn produce cancer cells. Some HIV patients have a higher risk of developing cancer, for reasons that was not fully understood. Perhaps the answer is in their genes. Perhaps a way of totally deactivating the junk-virus DNA will lead to a treatment to slow down the development of cancer.

So we have come full circle. Svante Pääbo began his scientific career researching into viruses and their effects on the human immune system, and because of his pioneering palaeogenetic research scientists can now look at ancient Neanderthal DNA to discover a treatment for HIV and cancer patients.

Star-Gayzing ... To Seek Out New Worlds

In August 1988 an article was published in “The Astrophysical Journal” called “A Search for Substellar Companions to Solar-type Stars”. This presented the first evidence of the scientific detection of a planet orbiting another star, an exoplanet. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of this discovery let’s look at some significant contributions members of the lgbt community have made in the hunt for new worlds.

One of the earliest men to speculate on the existence of exoplanets was the philosopher and spy Giordano Bruno. I featured him as one of my Extraordinary Lives in 2015. He got into a lot of trouble with the Roman Catholic Church about his theory on the existence of multiple Christs. His theory about an infinite number of stars and an infinite number of planets caused no problem to all to the church. Giordano theorised that in a Christian universe God would send a Christ to every infinite planet. The Church taught that there will only ever be one Christ and said an infinite number was heresy. They accepted his science without question, but scientists at the time didn’t.

Sir Isaac Newton wrote that the stars were just like our Sun and were all at the centre of similar systems like our own, though he stopped short of using the word “planets”.

Many scientists and philosophers before and since have theorised about exoplanets. Our present generation of scientists includes openly lgbt astronomers in the hunt for other worlds. Here are three of them.


The Planet Hunters : (left to right) Wladimir Lyra, Rebecca Oppenheimer, B. Scott Gaudi.

One of the problems facing astronomers is how to determine what is a planet and what isn’t. I mentioned the problem earlier this year in my article “Discovering Dwarves”. Astronomer Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer led a team that discovered the first brown dwarf star in 1994. The data that was gathered has helped astronomers tell the difference between a brown dwarf star and a giant gas planet. It was her discovery of the brown dwarf which led Dr. Oppenheimer to concentrate on planet hunting.

Rebecca Oppenheimer is currently the principal investigator of Project 1640 based at the American Museum of Natural History where she works as professor, curator and chair of the Astrophysics Department. Project 1640 is an imaging system which uses special techniques on images collected from Mount Palomar Observatory near San Diego in California.

At the time of its foundation the project’s contrast imaging system was the most advanced in the world and was cannibalised from ground-breaking technology developed for a previous project called the Lyot Project. Rebecca Oppenheimer was a leading member of that project as well.

Project 1640 and the Lyot Project before it used a technique called coronography. Basically, this is a method of creating an artificial eclipse when instruments are pointing at a star. The star is made to dim to an extent whereby any object orbiting it, such as a planet, if any, is easier to detect.

Another technique is gravitational microlensing in which the minute gravitational pull of a star can effect the light coming from a more distant star. Ripples in data can mean a planet is orbiting the star in front. One of the leaders in this technique is Dr. B. Scott Gaudi, Professor of Discovery and Space Exploration at Ohio State University. In 2008 he led the team that discovered the existence of the first Jupiter-Saturn-type exoplanets. This was of interest to another field of research – the search for extraterrestrial life.

In our solar system Jupiter and Saturn were instrumental in stabilising the habitable zone in which Earth orbits and in pulling away lots of asteroids that might crash into it. Perhaps these new exoplanets (with the cumbersome names of OGLE-2006-BLG-109Lb and OGLE-2006-BLG-109Le) mean there could be an Earth-like, life-bearing planet just waiting to be discovered.

Scott Gaudi has received many awards for his work, as has Rebecca Oppenheimer. One particular award, a grant from the National Science Foundation, allowed Scott to use the outreach component of the award to promote astronomy and astrophysics to the lgbt community. When he was growing up as a young gay teenager in Illinois Scott had no gay role models and science was a means to overcome doubts and stresses of being a gay youngster, much as some lgbt athletes did with sport. The award meant that Scott could present himself and others as being accepted and successful in the world of science and openly lgbt.

Back in October 2016 I wrote an article about Dr. Wladimir Lyra’s attempt to rename some exoplanets. The focus of his scientific work, however, is not so much on looking for planets as working out how planetary systems are formed. Using computer simulations he has developed scenarios whereby it is possible to theorise how planets form out of dust clouds around all types of star. This has helped to determine which stars are likely to have planetary systems and compares the data with actual observations.

Doctors Rebecca Oppenheimer, B. Scott Gaudi and Wladimir Lyra are just three of the lgbt astronomers who are involved in the hunt for new worlds and are encouraging the next generation.

A Queer Trace of Forensics

I love all those television programmes about forensic science, both factual and fiction, and so do millions of others. These days there are dozens of crime dramas and true crime series which deal with forensic detection.

Even though DNA testing has been around in crime detection since the early 1990s there is one particular technique developed by a gay forensic scientist which provides more plot twists than any other – trace DNA evidence.

We take it for granted these days that people leave microscopic traces of their DNA on objects they touch. That wasn’t always the case. At the end of the last century that gay scientist I mentioned, with the City of London Police and a Home Office agency, worked to create a means of obtaining DNA from microscopic trace, or touch, evidence obtained from hard surfaces.

The whole project was the brainchild of Dr. Nikolas Lemos (b.1971), a Greek-born forensic scientist who was until last year the Chief Forensic Toxicologist in San Francisco. By his own admission he was “the first ever openly gay chief forensic toxicologist in the world.”

In 1999 he was Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science at South Bank University in Greater London. In London at that time there had been a lot of computer thefts from some of the major financial institutions in the City. Millions of pounds-worth of equipment was stolen and police had difficulty finding the thieves.

Scientists had been using DNA found in dandruff, hair follicles and fingerprints as evidence in cases for several years. But what if there is no dandruff, hair or fingerprint? It was widely accepted that traces of DNA could be left behind on objects just by touch. But the technology to obtain DNA from evidence invisible to the naked eye wasn’t advanced enough. Nikolas Lemos believed you could obtain adequate samples if the DNA was put through a process of amplification (or duplication of DNA sequences) to provide one large enough to generate a profile. In standard DNA testing a sample of between 50 and 100 cells were needed to produce an adequate profile. The new technique developed by Nikolas Lemos at South Bank University, the City of London Police and the Forensic Science Service of the Home Office only needed 5 cells and is called LCN (low copy number) analysis.

It should be stressed that fictional crime dramas use over-simplification when featuring such techniques. In reality trace DNA identification by LCN is not without controversy. The technique is also not yet as widespread as crime dramas might suggest.

Despite its critics the LCN technique was adopted by the UK and has been used to provide DNA evidence in over 21,000 trials. Unfortunately, there have been some miscarriages of justice (as there can be if based on any other type of evidence) based on the LCN DNA used in some cases. Consequently, a review of the technique was conducted by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2007 during which time the technique was suspended for a couple of months. The review found that it was “fit for purpose” and reinstated.

More recently an American judge refused to accept LCN DNA evidence because he didn’t believe the technique had gained enough acceptance among the US scientific community.

By that time Dr. Nikolas Lemos had left the UK and had been Chief Forensic Toxicologist at San Francisco’ Medical Examiner’s office for several years. His work had always involved general forensic toxicology and the LCN DNA detection is just one part of Nikolas’s ground-breaking work.

Other high-profile work he had become involved with while in San Francisco was the study of the toxic effects of cannabis, and the toxicology report on the death of Whitney Houston.

In 2005 Nikolas received a Proclamation of Achievement for his “prestigious involvement in crime detection” from the United States Congress.

As an openly gay man Nikolas had campaigned for the legalisation of same-sex marriage, even going so far as to dress up as the Statue of Liberty and stand on the steps of San Francisco’s city hall. In 2013 he was nominated as a Grand Marshal of San Francisco Pride. Even though he wasn’t selected he again donned his Statue of Liberty costume to take part in the parade.

Dr. Nikolas Lemos left San Francisco’s ME office last year leaving a substantial contribution to crime detection and investigative techniques. Even though the LCN DNA technique he developed is not yet universally used it is a breakthrough that can only improve as science and technology advances.

NOGLSTP Awards

Way back in February I gave a list of the people who were Scientist of the Year, an award given by the National Organisation of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals (NOGLSTP). They also give other awards for work in science and technology, and here is the complete list to date. Several of the winners have been featured in some of my articles throughout the year.

Walt Westman Award

(named after one of NOGLSTP’s founders and awarded in recognition to the recipient’s contribution and commitment to the organisation).

2004    Rochelle Diamond, Chair of NOGLSTP.

2006    Michael Parga, in recognition of his work to have the organisation incorporated.

2007    Christopher Bannochie, in recognition of his work as liaison with the American Chemical Society.

2012    Amy A. Ross, founding member of Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Scientists.

GLBT Institution/Organisation of the Year (called the National Corporate Award in 2005)

(awarded to the institution/organisation/company which has demonstrated outstanding support for NOLSTP and its objectives).

2004    The American Association for the Advancement of Science.

2005    The Raytheon Company.

GLBT Engineer of the Year

(awarded to an engineer who has made outstanding contributions in their field, and recognises sustained contributions in design, production, management or research).

2005    Lynn Conway, Prof. Emerita of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan.

2006    Peter Ventzek, manager, Advanced Products Research and Development Laboratory at Freescale; Chair of the Plasma Science and Technology Division, American Vacuum Society; member of the Freescale EQUAL employee group.

2007    Tim Gill, founder and former chair of Quark Inc., a leading developer of page lay-out software; Chairman of the Gill Foundation.

2008    Michael Steinberg, Deputy Program Manager for Air-to-Air Programs, Raytheon Missile Systems; Raytheon Engineering Fellow since 2003; co-founder, Tuscon branch of the Raytheon GLBTA Employee Resource Group; former President of Beth El Binah, a Jewish lgbt community in Dallas.

2009    Anthony J. Gingiss, Systems Engineering Integration and Test Manager, GPS Program, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems; President Emeritus, El Segundo California chapter of the Boeing Employee Association of Gays, Lesbians and Friends.

2010    Jay Keasling, Hubbard Howe Jr Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California Berkeley.

2011    William Huffman of Northrup Grumman Electronic Systems – Marine Systems; in recognition of his work on key safety elements of the Trident nuclear submarine weapons system.

2012    Charles W. Lickel, former Vice-President of Software Research, IBM; co-chair, IBM GLBT corporate diversity task force; member of the Board of Directors, Out and Equal.

Educator Award

(awarded in recognition of the recipient’s contribution to the growth of glbt students in science or technology through teaching, counselling, advocacy, role modelling or other educational role).

2006    Denice Denton, Chancellor, University of California, Santa Cruz; Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington; recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, 2004.

2007    Karl Mauzey, Instructor of Computer Networking and Information Technology, Community College, San Francisco.

2008    Michael Falk, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and of Applied Physics, University of Michigan.

2009    Virginia Uribe, counselling psychologist and retired science teacher; founder of Project 10, a support system for lgbt students in the Los Angeles Unified School District; founder of Models of Pride conference, and Models of Excellence scholarship programme.

2010    Donna Riley, Associate Professor of Engineering, Smith College.

2011    Ron Buckmire, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Mathematics, Occidental College Los Angeles; creator of the Queer Resources Directory; co-founder, Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a black lgbt civil rights organisation.

2012    Mark Pope, Professor and Chair of the Division of Counselling and Family Therapy, University of Missouri St Louis; President, American Psychological Association’s Society of the Psychological Study of LGB Issues; former President, American Counselling Association.

1 + 1 = 1

It’s surprising how many mathematicians and computer scientists there are who are partners of others. It’s not so obvious in the other sciences. So today I’ll bring you 8 people who prove that 1 (mathematician) plus 1 (mathematician) equals 1 (couple).

The first couple are more of an “alleged couple” than a self-acknowledged one. They are Soviet mathematicians Andrei Kolmogorov (1903-1987) and Pavel Aleksandrov (1896-1982). Both men were living at a time and in a country where homosexuality was illegal. Their relationship, or friendship, began in 1929 when they went on a 3-week boat trip together down several European rivers.

Aleksandrov was topologist, a mathematician who studies shapes, forms and spaces, and was Professor of Mathematics at Moscow University. Kolmogorov was more interested in logic and virtually invented probability theory (which, ironically, sums up the common view of their relationship – it’s a probability theory by itself!).

In 1935 Aleksandrov and Kolmogorov bought a house in Moscow and they lived there together until Aleksandrov’s death in 1982. Although neither admitted their sexuality publicly, there were rumours floating around the Soviet Union for decades, and other Soviet mathematicians have said that they believed they were both gay. It seemed to be an open secret, known even by Stalin himself. Today the nature of their relationship is disputed, stating that Kolmogorov was married, but we shall see next that is no proof of heterosexuality. My own opinion is that there is enough to suggest they did have some form of romantic attachment which may, or not may not, have been physical.

One of Kolmogorov’s students links directly to an undoubtedly open gay mathematical couple – Robert MacPherson (b.1944) and Mark Goresky (b.1950). In 1977 MacPherson was approached by Kolmogorov’s  former student. Through him MacPherson got to know many Moscow mathematicians and visited them in the USSR regularly. However, Soviet maths was not freely available in the West because the over-suspicious authorities were always looking for coded political messages or state secrets in research papers submitted for publication. MacPherson continually smuggled maths research papers out of Moscow for anonymous publication in the West.

Things got worse for Russian mathematicians after the collapse of the USSR. Mathematicians and academics found it difficult to find work in the economic crisis which followed. The state had no money for maths or research. MacPherson persuaded the American Mathematical Society to start a fund to help the struggling mathematicians.

But MacPherson has been more than a maths philanthropist. With his partner Mark Goresky he discovered intersection homology, another of those complicated ideas you find in topology. MacPherson and Mark met in 1971 when Mark began as a graduate at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA, where MacPherson taught. Both men were married, but there was a chemistry between them that began almost immediately. After collaborating on the intersection homology paper the two went their separate ways, but both of their marriages began to break up soon afterwards. In 1985 they realised they were in love and they’ve been together ever since.

My next two couples are involved with the computer sciences and information technology. Ladies first.

The world of information technology and Silicon Valley often conjures up images of men in white lab coats. One female couple who are among the most powerful in IT are Megan Smith (b.1964) and Kara Swisher (b.1962). Megan is currently a vice president at Google, which she joined in 2003. She earned both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree at MIT in mechanical engineering and serves on MIT’s board. In April this year, and last year, Megan was named in “Out” magazine’s Power List of the USA’s 50 most powerful and influential lgbt people.

In 2008 Megan married Kara Swisher, a technology columnist. Their marriage was timed deliberately to be held the day before California voters overturned the same-sex marriage law that their courts had approved just 5 months beforehand.

Kara has been writing on technology issues for the Wall Street Journal for several years, and co-founded the online journal “All Things Digital” with Walt Mossberg. Even though she is married to a Google executive Kara has not shied away from criticising the company or it’s policies. In 2012 BusinessInsider.com placed Megan and Kara in it’s “18 Hottest Power Couples in Technology”, the only same-sex couple on the list.

Finally, when it comes to global communications, one gay couple has played key roles. In fact we would probably not be able to use computers for work or send emails without their contribution. Their names are Kirk McKusick (b.1954) and Eric Allman (b.1955).

Eric and Kirk have also been referred to as a “power couple”. Kirk, having a degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in computer science, worked in the 1980s as project manager at the University of California, Berkeley, on a way for computers to locate and recall saved and closed files. We take that for granted these days.

Eric worked on an early example of something else we take for granted. Also working in the 1980s Eric developed a programme which could send messages and documents from one computer to another. He called it Sendmail. Over the years he developed the programme, and it became the forerunner of toady’s emails.

Getting it Straight About - the Apple Logo

Its strange how quickly some urban myths and common misconceptions can spread. Unfortunately, most of them are much slower to correct. One, however, seems to have corrected itself in a relatively short time – the link between the Apple computer logo and Alan Turing.

First of all, what is the connection? The tragic end to Turing’s life was caused by his homosexuality. More accurately, it was caused by British society’s attitudes to homosexuality. After Turing was arrested and convicted for gross indecency he was given a choice – imprisonment, or organo-therapy. Turing chose the latter.

Organo-therapy involved the injection and ingestion of female hormones, notably oestrogen. Research into this treatment was basic and not extensively tested. Turing became, in effect, a guinea pig. But it was also thought that it would lead to a lessening of mental activity. Having his body altered was bad enough, but Turing also had to face the reality of a stagnation in his mental capacity.

Although Turing carried on vital research, mostly into morphogenesis (the presence of mathematical patterns in nature, of which I’ll write more about in November), he became more depressed by his treatment, both medical and personal, and decided to commit suicide.

Who knows why he chose to inject an apple with cyanide and eat it. Some have suggested he got the idea from a scene in Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”, which he’d seen a short time beforehand. Turing was found on 8^th June, 59 years ago this morning, with the half-eaten apple near his bed.

It is no wonder that the lgbt community began to link the manner of his death to the Apple logo.

The familiar Apple logo with a bite out of it first appeared in 1977. In those days of glam rock and post 60s psychedelic design the logo was originally depicted in rainbow colours (shown here), not, as Jean-Louis Gasée (former Apple executive) said “in the wrong order”, but in the correct order starting with green at the top to emphasise the green leaf. In a world of bright logos and branding this first Apple logo became an instant hit with consumers.

But why an apple? The answer comes from the company’s first logo in 1976.

In a retro design by Ronald Wayne that looks more like a Victorian bookplate than a logo, the figure of Sir Isaac Newton is shown sitting under his apple tree, a solitary apple highlighted on a branch. Newton’s famous work on rainbows automatically inspired Rob Janoff to come up with the rainbow apple (the rainbow and Newton, an asexual and probably gay-inclined man, will be mentioned again in October – my meteorology month).

The bite from the apple logo was only introduced after it was remarked that the fruit could easily be mistaken for a tomato or cherry. So the bite (nothing to do with computer bytes) was added (or was it taken away?).

The rainbow apple logo was used up to 1997, when design had moved away from psychodelia and into simpler shapes. What could be more simpler than turning the apple into monochrome.

The urban myth of Alan Turing’s death inspiring the Apple logo, although relatively short-lived, still lingers in people’s minds. So much so, that as recently as last year an apple with a bite was used on the cover of a biography of Turing. It remains one of those ironic connections between unrelated ideas that the human mind so often makes – seeing links and patterns in things that aren’t there. Turing, with his pioneering work on morphogenesis, may well have been amused.

Perhaps Turing would be even more amused by the fact that the Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Tim Cook, is an openly gay man and one of the most influential men on the planet.

Heritage Spotlight - Bletchley Park

The work done by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park during World War II is well known. So well known, in fact, that it overshadows the work of the other code-breakers who worked there. Which is why I direct you to the website of the Bletchley Park Museum.

Turing wasn’t the only gay man at Bletchley Park. Here are three more gay code-breakers.

Noel Currer-Briggs (1919-2004)

Noel was a respected genealogist who, late in his career, turned to research into the families of the Holy Grail legend and owners of the Turin Shroud. He arrived at Bletchley Park from the Filed Ambulance Corps in late 1941. His skills in languages (he was studying for a degree in Modern Languages at Cambridge University when he was called up for war service) made him ideal to work on German ciphers. Noel worked on the Enigma ciphers briefly and then on the Nazi naval Playfair ciphers used in the lead-up to an invasion of Sicily in 1943. It was this work which helped the Allies to counter Nazi movements. For this Noel received an honour for his work he refused to consider his work of any great significance – “I was never sure why!” he once said. He left Bletchley Park with the rank of Major. After becoming a gentleman farmer he turned to genealogy and wrote many family history books and was a consultant on Debrett’s Peerage. Like many gay men of his era he married. With his wife Barbara he ran an opera festival, and he was secretary of the Three Choirs Festival. Eventually Noel left his wife after accepting his sexuality. He made a couple of television and radio appearances in the days before genealogy was really popular, usually broadcasting on royal or peerage matters. Had he lived another couple of years he would surely have entered the spotlight in the furore surrounding “The Da Vinci Code”. With his popular eccentric personality and extensive knowledge of medieval Holy Grail legend and genealogy he would have become a star.

Bentley Bridgewater (1911-1996)

This Canadian-born son of an English barrister became one of the UK’s leading museum administrators. Bentley first joined the British Museum in 1937 and was it’s Secretary from 1948. In between these years he was seconded to the Foreign Office and sent as a cryptographer to Bletchley Park in 1942. Whilst at Bletchley he was the partner of Angus Wilson (below). They had both worked at the British Museum in different departments. At Bletchley they both worked in Hut 4, the Naval Section which included the Enigma work. Bentley didn’t work on the Enigma himself but on the RHV ciphers used by Nazi ice-breakers and u-boats who didn’t carry Enigma machines. During this period Angus Wilson went through a series of emotional problems, most often violent, and Bentley was the rock on which Angus could cling to. The Wrens often called them “The Heavenly Twins”. After the war Bentley returned to the British Museum and retired in 1973.

Sir Angus Wilson (1913-1991)

The most well-known of this Bletchley trio, Angus became a successful writer and was knighted in 1980 for services to literature. It had been suggested he become a cryptographer by a colleague in the British Museum cataloguing department who had already gone there. It was Angus’s adequate skills in Italian that placed him in the Naval Section working on Italian ciphers. He later went on to work on Japanese naval ciphers (he was an expert on Japanese call-signs) and the Nazi intelligence service codes. He ended his Bletchley Park career as a Communications Intelligence Officer. Gradually, the stress of the war took its toll on Angus and his increasingly alarming tantrums at Bletchley led to him being given psychiatric therapy. After the war Angus returned to his job at the British Museum, where he began writing short stories. As more of his stories became published he became a full-time writer and left the museum in 1955. His writing career took off and he became a popular raconteur and regular television chat show guest.

There are many Bletchley Park code-breakers – some still living – who are hardly known outside Bletchley circles. This small selection is my tribute to them all.



Bletchley Park