Hacker News Reader

Comment by ColinWright | Hacker News Reader

One of my lecturers for my first degree was Gordon Preston. He worked with Turing at Bletchley, and apparently used to play Go with him quite regularly. He will have known Turing quite well, both professionally and, insofar as was possible at the time, socially.

I knew Preston quite well - he mentored me in the scholar program - but I never knew of his connection with Turing. When I did find out I started to make enquiries about re-establishing contact, but Preston now has advanced dementia and doesn't recognize even close family.

Such a lost opportunity, primarily because I was young, self-absorbed, ignorant, but believing I was clever and knowledgeable. And now the chance is gone forever. This is why I now try to take every opportunity to connect with people who have stories to tell, and encourage them to talk.

View on HN

> young, self-absorbed, ignorant, but believing I was clever and knowledgeable.

Well, don't beat yourself up too much. It is existentially wrenching to think about the missed opportunity but such is the folly of youth. Equally Preston could have shared more. Like tears in rain and all that.

Though I look at that statue of Turing and I really want to shake his hand and thank him. Sometimes life is terribly unfair.

  > Equally Preston could have shared more.

Now that I am actively seeking out people and deliberately spending time with them, the one thing I consistently find is that they are very reluctant to initiate conversations about these things. I've now spent time with Charlie Duke, Alan Bean, and TK Mattingly, and without exception it takes time to get them to open up and talk about these things.

I used to wonder why, but I had an in-depth conversation with someone a while ago who was similarly reluctant. She said:

    People ask, but usually they don't really care.
    And if they do care, they usually won't make
        the effort to understand.
    And if they do make the effort to understand,
        they usually don't have the background or
        experience to understand.
    And if they do understand, I don't need to have
        explained.

Taking the time, making the effort, explicitly acknowledging that you'll never fully understand and yet being willing to make the effort to appreciate their experience, then you can get people to tell their stories.

Otherwise they won't, and you'll miss out.

I understand why, and I know how most of us are. But it does make me sad that these harrowing experiences get smothered by polite conversation. FWIW my grandparents escaped the Soviet gulags and were likewise reluctant to discuss it. So the stories and lessons are lost.

I remember sitting chatting for a day with Ivan Moscovich. his story[0] is compelling and horrifying in equal measure. I am privileged to count him as a friend, and to have had him open up and talk quietly about some of his experiences.

[0] http://yoz.com/wired/2.09/features/moscovich.html

>Now that I am actively seeking out people and deliberately spending time with them, the one thing I consistently find is that they are very reluctant to initiate conversations about these things. I've now spent time with Charlie Duke, Alan Bean, and TK Mattingly, and without exception it takes time to get them to open up and talk about these things.

It also depends on the person asking and how he goes about it.

I have a couple of friends who people will tell them absolutely anything, their whole life drama, 10-20 minutes after meeting them.

Do you have any sources for the Go playing? I only ask out of interest, as it'd be something the BGA would be very interested in knowing I think...

    I also got to know well P J (Peter) Hilton
    and A N (Alan) Turing. With Turing I spent
    uncountable hours playing Go, as also with
    David Rees.

Source: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Extras/Preston_s...

Earlier in that:

    There, I was with a small group of about twenty
    mathematicians, assisted by about 250 WRENS, in
    what was called the Newmanry. M H A Newman, the
    MHAN, was the head of this group, and the assistant
    head was Shaun Wylie.

Apropos of nothing in particular, Shaun Wylie supervised Frank Adams, who supervised Béla Bollobás[1], who supervised me.

[1] http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/gallery/bollobas.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com