Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to his family
Akaba
28.3.18
Well, I foretold a long trip, when I was in Cairo a few days ago, and here I am back in Akaba for two nights. Various things happened to delay my start - and indeed I may have one more chance of writing about a week hence, from further North. News? none. We have lost so much by frost and snow and rain that movement has become difficult, and very unpleasant. There is however hope that the spring is coming. Yesterday was warm, but then Akaba always is. About Arnie. General Clayton asked me about him last time I was in Palestine. They did not wire for him, after all, as another man turned up, who will do for the present, and I knew he would rather not hurry things too much. As soon as I hear from you that he is ready to come out they will make an application for him to the War Office. For it to be successful he must be in the army, and an infantry regiment will be the easiest place, unless he gets a special list commission, which may not be still possible. I do not think there will be any difficulty about it at all, so long as he keeps up with his Arabic. I saw Kerry the other day, and Hugh Whitelocke - the only people from Oxford seen for some little time. No matter: after four years of this sort of thing I am become altogether dried up, and till the business ends I can't do anything else either here or there. It will be a great comfort when one can lie down and sleep without having to think about things; and speak without having one's every word reported in half a hundred camps. This is a job too big for me.
N.
| Source: | HL 349 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 13 January 2006 |
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