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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to his mother
Clouds Hill
18.v.24
No, there had been a muddle about the papers. I'd told Smith's to send the bill to me, and they had taken alarm at my khaki (you know a soldier can't be sued for debt) and had decided to wait for cash. It is arranged now, and I hope you will get them regularly: though you are hopelessly far away. You will be careful not to form your opinion only on The Times. I've added a New Statesman to the order, since that is a paper which does not instantly condemn an idea for the reason that it is new. I forget what I told you when I last wrote... that Trenchard had wanted me to write the war-history of the Royal Air Force, and had been hurt by the definiteness of my refusal... that Arnie is soon coming to England. I hear very often from Mrs. Bernard Shaw, and Robert Graves intends to call in soon, on his way to visit Hardy. So that things are busy for me. In camp as little happens as ever. I have a quiet place now, live very much by myself, and have no worries, beyond the slow coming of old age:- not so slow this last: I suppose it is the revenge of Arabia for my contempt of its climate. Some changes lately made in my motor-cycle have made it faster and better to ride: but I've only done 3,000 miles this year, so that you may imagine I do little riding.
To date 34 people have subscribed for the private issue of my book. I had hoped for 110 in all... but it seems unlikely.
N.
Should you ever need to alter the papers in a hurry: write to
W. H. Smith & Son
Newsagents
Dorchester
Dorset
and ask them to communicate with me... that's if I'm sent away from here.
| Source: | HL 358 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 12 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