Rush to raise half a million

22 November 2010, 06:00

A campaign's been launched to try and save papers written by a code-breaker who helped win us the Second World War.

They want to raise the money to buy a collection of papers written by Alan Turing - which goes up for auction at Christies on Tuesday.

It's thought to be the largest collection of Turing's papers in the world - it was put together by one of his friends - and fellow Bletchley Park Codebreaker Professor Max Newman.

Turing worked at Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes breaking ciphers like the famous German Enigma code.  He also came up with some of the theories behind modern computers.

The guide price for the papers is 300 to 500 thousand pounds - which is more than the Bletchley Park Trust can afford.

There are fears the papers could go out of the country if the cash isn't found.

Simon Greenish - the Director at Bletchley Park - told Heart:

"The link with Turing is about as strong at Bletchley Park as it is anywhere, and we don't have a lot of his material. Wouldn't it be good to have something of his that we could put on display for people to come and see?"

If you want to donate to the campaign visit www.justgiving.com/turing-papers

For more on the campaign click here

To look at the items on the Christies website click here.