Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to H. H. Banbury
[Cattewater]
18.4.29
Dear H.H.B.
Yes: seaplanes involve motor-boats, and so we grow 'webbed' toes. This camp stands in the sea. I think it will be lovely, if the sea gets hot and the sun too. Meanwhile I am still mainly conscious of the cold.
I have heard Carden Lloyds working. They crawl up and down Clouds Hill, to the temporary damage of its peace. However, what's temporary?
Yes, Lydd is on the sea-edge of beautiful country. You should be able to find plenty of appetite for driving around it. There is something about S. England which makes me, in every valley, on every ridge, say 'Oh, I want to have a room here, and sit in it looking and looking!' If my name was Rockerfeller, I'd have 3428 cottages, and spend my time flitting from one to the other (a different name in each) round every ten years spell of my unendurably long and slow life.
Three Persons wasn't as good as it seemed at first. The Wilson article left out of him his greatness - an extraordinary fellow he was. House was respectable and serious. Upon me he was irritating. He patronised me, I thought, damn him. What does he know about prose that he dares praise mine? [2 lines omitted]
| Source: | DG 651 | |
| Checked: | dn/ | |
| Last revised: | 29 January 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