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 W. H. Brook

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338171 A/c Shaw
R.A.F. Mount Batten
Plymouth

8.1.30.

Dear Brook

Don't believe more than 1/8th of any yarn you hear of me: or 1/16th if it is printed. I never do. They say I don't answer letters because I don't write letters without some good reason, or more than ten letters a week. Hang it all, a fellow, must sleep sometime! And letter writing is what the R.A.F. call a 'bind'.

Good for the proxy for the Christening! I hope the kid yells blue murder all the time. I should, if a padre picked me up and poured cold water on my face.

As for coming - yes, a Brough does eat up the miles: but I seldom go out of camp, for one reason and another, often financial! Brecon is not near Plymouth - not a Wednesday afternoon run: and I don't ever week end - so I shall not hope to turn up till I get my month's annual, in the late summer, perhaps. I will write you again before that.

As for Arabia - that was twelve years ago and I've got old and wise, and have forgotten it all. What a lovely place Rumm was! I believe nobody has been there since 1918.

Yours

T.E. Shaw

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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