By Tushna Commissariat
With Christmas coming up, for those of you looking for geeky and fun gifts for friends and family, here is one to add to your shopping list – Bletchley Park has officially launched a special edition Alan Turing Monopoly board. The new game-board is based on a unique board housed in the Bletchley Park Museum and hand-drawn by William Newman, son of Turing’s mentor, scientist Max Newman, in 1950 and has been created by Winning Moves, which creates new editions of Monopoly.
Above is an image of the new board, and below is a copy of Newman’s hand-drawn version. (Images courtesy Bletchley Park/ Winning Moves.)
In Turing’s Monopoly, all the banknotes have Turing’s face on them and instead of the usual London haunts occupying the squares, the board maps places of significant importance in Turing’s life – for example, Bletchley Park and Kings College, Cambridge replace Mayfair and Park Lane, respectively – along with key elements of the original hand-drawn board, which the great mathematician played on with a young William in the early 1950s – and lost, according to Bletchley Park. The special edition also includes a copy of the hand-drawn board, complete with Newman’s own rules, unseen pictures of Turing donated by his family as well as historical references for all the places mentioned.
“Bringing this board to life has been one of the most exciting and unique projects we’ve been involved with here, and we’re thrilled to see it finally available for others to enjoy,” says Iain Standen, head of the Bletchley Park Trust. “This edition really completes the fantastic story of the board, from it being played on by Turing (and his losing on it!), to it going missing and then being rediscovered and donated to the museum here. Of course, we’re also very proud that Bletchley Park adorns the ‘Mayfair’ square!” Google bought the first 1000 special-edition boards as a donation to the Bletchley Park Trust.
So if you are hankering after some science Monopoly fun, you can pre-order your very own game from the Bletchley Park website here for £29.99, and take a look at the dedicated Facebook page here. Or make sure to put it on your Christmas wish-list – I know it’s definitely on mine!
