alan taught himself to read in about three weeks from a book called reading without tears. he was quicker, however, to recognise figures, and had an infuriating habit of stopping at every lamp post to identify its serial number. he was one of those many people without a natural sense of left and right, and he made a little red spot on his left thumb, which he called 'the knowing spot'.

艾伦通过一本《快乐阅读》，用三周时间学会了阅读，他还用更短的时间学会了识数，并且养成了一个烦人的习惯：每次走过路灯时，都要停下来看上面的编号。但是，艾伦分不清楚左右，他在左手的拇指上画了一个红点，称为「识别点」，通过它，来判断哪边是左。

he would say that he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up – an ambition that would have been agreeable to the turings, for his father would approve of the fees, and his mother of the distinguished clients and the practice of good works. but he could not learn to be a doctor on his own. it was time for some education. and so in the summer of 1918 mrs turing sent him to a private day school called st michael's, to learn latin.

艾伦的理想，是当一名医生，这是一个令家人很高兴的志向。他父亲喜欢医生的高薪，他母亲喜欢医生的地位。但是，当医生总不能靠自学吧，于是他们考虑，该让艾伦去上学了。1918年夏天，图灵夫妇把他送到圣麦克尔私立学校，学习拉丁文。

george orwell, who was born nine years earlier but likewise to an ics father, described himself5 as from 'what you might describe as the lower-upper-middle-class.' before the war, he wrote: you were either a gentleman or not a gentleman, and if you were a gentleman you struggled to behave as such, whatever your income might be. … probably the distinguishing mark of the upper-middle class was that its traditions were not to any extent commercial, but mainly military, official, and professional. people in this class owned no land, but they felt that they were landowners in the sight of god and kept up a semi-aristocratic outlook by going into the professions and the fighting services rather than into trade. small boys used to count the plum stones on their plates and foretell their destiny by chanting 'army, navy, church, medicine, law'. the turings were in this position. there was nothing grand about the life of their sons, except perhaps on the few scottish holidays. their luxuries were the cinema, the ice rink, and watching the stunt-man dive off the pier on a bicycle. but in the ward establishment there was an incessant washing away of sins, washing away of smells, to distinguish them from the other children of the town. 'i was very young, not much more than six,' recalled orwell, 'when i first became aware of class-distinctions. before that age my chief heroes had generally been working-class people, because they always seemed to do such interesting things, such as being fishermen and blacksmiths and bricklayers. … but it was not long before i was forbidden to play with the plumber's children; they were “common” and i was told to keep away from them. this was snobbish, if you like, but it was also necessary, for middle-class people cannot afford to let their children grow up with vulgar accents.'

比艾伦大9岁的英国作家乔治·奥维尔，曾经自称是「上层中产阶级里的下层人」，他在战前写道：如果你是个绅士，无论你收入多少，都要咬着牙齿去表现得像个绅士。上层中产阶级的特点就是，他们没有商业传统，只崇尚军人，官员或者学者。这个阶级的人，手里没有土地，但却总是自认为，自己是上帝眼中的地主。他们不经商，只从事专业职务或者从军，以此来维持半贵族的形象。男孩们总是数着盘子里的石头，念叨着『陆军，海军，牧师，医生，律师』，用这样的方式，来计划自己的未来。现在，图灵一家就是这么个处境。除了在苏格兰度过的几个假期之外，两个男孩几乎没有什么快乐。他们的奢侈品，就是看电影，溜冰，看杂技。在沃德那里，他们感受到了一种持续不断的清洗，把他们从其他同龄孩子中划分出来。如奥威尔所说：我在很小的时候，还不到6岁，就感受到了阶级划分。本来我很向往工人阶级，因为他们总是在做一些有趣的事，比如渔民、铁匠和瓦匠。但是，我很快就被禁止跟管道工的孩子们一起玩，因为他们是平庸的。