Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to his mother
1.4.29
I have been what they call 'Fire Picquet' this last 8 days: that means I have had to stay in camp all the time, with six others. Since Friday we have been almost the only people here: for Easter is our big holiday. I have been working at the Odyssey, and have roughed out Book 8. That is good. No other news: the bicycle is getting rusty: so am I, I fancy. If tomorrow is fine I may run out in the evening and buy some stamps and notepaper, both of which are running short. I shall be glad when summer time gives us longer evenings.
This is a noisy hut. It has been pleasant to have four quiet days: and I think I have turned them to good account, so far as Homer is concerned.
This place is good. I like it: but to get to Plymouth (only 300 yards crow-fly) is four and a half miles of bad road! The local papers are making their usual fuss over me: I hope they will get it over soon.
N.
| Source: | HL 376 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 14 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