Watch Out for the Flowers

 

I've been consuming YouTube stuff over the last couple of evenings/days about and by some incredibly talented and mostly unsung people, most of whom will never impact any written history, but whose ingenuity and can-do attitude most definitely contribute to the whole that is humanity: the kind of people without whom the human race would still be scratching its collective backside and wondering what berry to eat next.

If this sounds like the preface to a survivalist diatribe, just bear with me: it's not. What I'm talking about is something I've touched on before: the marginalization of those outwith 'society' as far as historical significance goes. The posh and the connected get to write and reconstruct their histories for posterity in ways not available to 'the other'.

I'm talking about the millions of talented, gifted and innovative people throughout the world, whose contributions are guardedly recognized, exploited, and ultimately filched by the somewhat less intellectually-and-practically-endowed guardians of the universe. I'm prompted - yet again - by the story of Bletchley Park, and the monumental intellectual and practical achievements of all involved there. In particular, Tommy Flowers: a man of humble origins who practically invented and constructed the first, true electronic computer: Colossus. The YouTube I watched tonight is of a lecture given by Chris Shore for The Centre for Computing History. An hour's investment of my time very well spent: I recommend watching it: oh, and check the insane mental gymnastics that Bill Tutte performed in laying down the theoretical framework that lead to the need for Colossus in the first place.

That all of these people's achievements were wrapped in The Official Secrets' Act, and undisclosed to the public and posterity for so long, just adds to the sadness of it all. We've had Hollywood and literary dramatizations of the codebreakers' story before, but not yet anything of real substance in elevating Tommy Flowers to the place in history he deserves: let's get a blockbuster dramatization made about him and in his name, his memory deserves it.