Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to H. G. Hayter
Cattewater
Plymouth
26.VI.29
Dear Hayter
I am a miserable slut not to have written to you before. Alas, I'm so weary of being yet a crawler on the surface of the earth that I would rather sleep than eat or think or work or read or write. Too lazy even to put a record on the gramophone.
You did very well to let F/Lt Smetham have those records: and he stumped up decently for them. I hope that 28 Sqdn. have settled in peacefully and are decent souls. How's Corpl. Easton? Tell him to come home. England is better then Miranshah.
I've got my AMWO's published, about bayonets to church and overcoat top buttons. Now I want bayonets declared obsolete and kit inspections made annual. After that we must wash out sticks. O Lord: and I am so tired, and want so much to lie down and sleep or die. Die's best: because there is no reveille.
Tell Corpl. Easton that his wife is looking ever so much better. She and I sat in committee on his last letters. I think all's for the best: except the change of Government, which puts Nancy's nose out of joint. Who's Nancy? Why, ask the Corporal.
Sgt. Cowton I met in London ten days back. We had an 8 o'clock breakfast at Lyons in the Strand on Sunday: when you were in bed and your hound on top of you. Peggy-Wegs Erben, a photographer from Miranshah, turned up here yesterday, disguised as a Corporal. So you can hope. Cattewater is very good: but I am too tired for a MacDonald. If it was Miranshah I would dodge under a net and forget my sins and the world's weariness.
Oh, the books. I got bundle upon bundle of them, and Sgt. Cowton has others. Every possible thanks be given to you. My new bike is a peach. 4000 miles, only, on it: but all good. Alas, how tired I am of bikes and books and music and food and drink and words and work.
T.E.S.
| Source: | DG 659-660 | |
| Checked: | dn/ | |
| Last revised: | 31 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