T. E. Lawrence

Contents lists

1888-1910

1911

1912

1913

1914

1915-16

1917-18

1919-20

1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

Updated June 2012

T. E. Lawrence to T. B. Marson

---

Frensham Pond Hotel
near Frensham
Surrey

Sunday 28.1.23.

Dear Marson

This is for the C.A.S., when he is not momentarily burdened with big politics. I've been looking round, these last few days, and find an odd blank:- there is nothing I can think of, that I want to do, and in consequence, nothing that I will do! And the further I get from the R.A.F. the more I regret its loss.

So I'm writing, not hopefully, to ask whether he thought (and turned down the idea) of giving me another chance? The Newspaper chatter I don't take seriously, (and you won't still it much by throwing them the fresh tit-bit of my discharge!), so it seems the real difficulty must be the disturbance I caused, unwillingly and unwittingly, at Farnborough. I can't help thinking it must have been, in large part, because the finding me out happened there, [so I] don't see why there should be further discomfort over me if I were posted, openly, to a more remote place, (such as Leuchars, whose C.O. is a solid and masterful person), with a note to the C.O., saying whom I was, and why, and that I'd be sacked if he found me inconvenient to him.

The C.A.S. said the other day (when I was too bothered with the news) that I was an unusual person, and inevitably embarrassing to a C.O. - but I don't agree. I've had a lurid past, which has now twice pulled me down, and of which I'm beginning to despair: but if my C.O. was a decent size he'd treat me as average, and I'd be average.

As I say, this isn't hopefully written. I fear it's too late and the business closed. If you know, please tear it up and tell me so in
a note from yourself: but the contrary chance would be worth so much to me that I'm trying it. The last thing I wish to seem is importunate: but I'm so sure that I played up at Farnborough, and did good, rather than harm to the fellows in camp there with me, that I venture to put in a last word for myself.

Yours ever

T E Lawrence

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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