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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Mrs. Thomas Hardy
Clouds Hill
31.VII.24.
[38 lines omitted] The Greek play was a tragedy here as well as in the Orestes family! The Staff Sergt. knew I wanted to get off promptly from work, and so he put me on to job after job, from 3.30 onward, till I was too late. This was his revenge for my having been clever a day or two before. The business was so sickening that I went away and had a feast of eggs and bacon, and pretended to be happy without spiritual food.
The Staff Sergt. has had a bad life since, and is sorry. Says I can get off early any day I like: I don't like… now.
Yours sincerely
T. E. Shaw
| Source: | DG 463 |
| Checked: | mv/ |
| Last revised: | 10 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