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 his mother

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Plymouth

19.3.29

It is not quite so cold, today. The camp still proves itself easy and good. It is so pleasantly tiny, after Karachi and Cranwell. More like Miranshah, but more crowded than Miranshah.

The longest leave we get is from after duty (noon) on Saturday, till midnight Sunday. If you set against that the distance we are from London, you'll see that that amounts to very little. Also there is the Odyssey to tackle. I have not touched it yet. It takes so long really to settle down in a new camp. We get a month's leave a year, too, of course: but this I am saving against the fear of a sudden release of that film, with a lot of public chatter.

I saw Clouds Hill. It is as lovely as ever: only chimney-pots on the top, as the sole disfigurement. I have paid for it now: only the conveyance is not yet ready. Four years has that wretched land agent been bungling his business. My job here is going to be given me in about 10 days or so. Till then I just busy myself doing some typing work in an office, helping a clerk who is too full of work.

N.

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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