Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to his mother
Bovington Camp
19.12.23.
Your letter from Shanghai got to me yesterday. I'm glad your trip is nearly finished, and that you have met Bob. Ocean voyages are nightmares in retrospect: and very tiresome experiences. You told me to write to Vancouver:- not to Shanghai: I did. Letters since have gone to Paoing. It isn't much good my writing frequently, since I have nothing to say. Some fellow in the camp took my Brough and crashed it: so that I have not been going about. Trenchard called me up to London twice, and on the first occasion I saw Mrs. D. at 2 Smith Square. She asked for your address in China: and I gave it her. Do you wish people generally to know that you are abroad?... just in case I meet anyone else. I saw old Hardy a month ago: he was well, and happy that his new play was over and done. My best address now is
T.E. Shaw
Clouds' Hill
Morton
Dorset
It's a cottage, a half-ruined cottage, near camp, where I have a room for writing in. A pretty little place, and quiet: among trees, and opening on the heath. I have put some books in it. Did I tell you that John had painted a splendid portrait of Hardy. Let me know if ever you feel the inclination for books or things. I can get into Bournemouth, often now, and buy them for you. They are employing me as a sort of half-clerk, half-storeman, in the battalion stores. A quiet life.
N.
| Source: | HL 356-7 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 9 February 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