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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
14, Barton Street,
S.W.1.
Thursday [14 August 1930]
We had two most excellent runs -and I like crossing England by road. So they go on the credit side.
As for going back by train - that is a thing I often do. No novelty, yet certainly no penalty: and I could not well stay in London till Tuesday. Probably I would get into trouble before that.
Yesterday lunched with Philip Sassoon and Noel Coward, and went on to a rehearsal of a new play. That would be considered a bit above myself by Lord T.
While at Cranwell I had to refrain from saying "Biffy" to my Commanding Officer: so I try, at Mount Batten, not to get into the habit of Sydney and Glare. Remember I have to say "W/Gomdr. and Mrs. Smith" 50 times a day: and the crowd wouldn't like it if my tongue slipped! That's the (very sensible) reason for being so foolishly formal
Yours,
T.E.S.
Give Horace a rub
with chalk, and my love, please.
| Source: | GR 102-3 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 1 July 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