Contents lists
Updated July 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Ian Deheer
Clouds Hill,
Moreton,
Dorset
20.IV.35
Dear Ian,
I should have sent this long ago, but in civil life - or in retirement anyway - time ceases to have any really sharp edges. Until I got a note from B.G. this morning, I did not understand that I had been here more than a few days, or years. The cottage is quiet now, my activities with the Newspaper Proprietors Association having delivered me at least temporarily from nuisance. My bikes are both well, and myself. The many little jobs incidental to settling into a new place distract me and fill my days. So all is as well as could be expected.
Will you be good enough to present the second print to P/O Manning! I have no Air Force list, to find his initials, and I expect you see him very often! I hope Bridlington goes well. It will not be our fault, anyhow, if if does not: for we made the boats pretty good. I hope he is not finding the weather (and Catfoss combined) too interfering.
Yours
T E Shaw.
My regards to your
father, and to Bill, please.
Source: | DG 868-9 |
Checked: | jw/ |
Last revised: | 15 January 2005 |
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset