Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
30.IV.31.
I should have written long ago, but so many new things keep on claiming us here. I have seldom been so busy, and in a strange place there are no hands available for help.
It seems that we shall be here at least a week more.
We have been able to do much, and get more done, so that I do not grudge the time spent. Most of the weather has been awful but I have noted two good Biscuit days. Plymouth will seem quietly peaceful when we can get back. I badly need to hear something harmonic.
This new 100 h.p. engine is excellent. Our 'cruiser' should be much improved. We hope for her launching on Saturday. On Tuesday the Experts arrive to her trials.
It is good that the W/Cmdr. got back at last. I hope the other F/B may turn up soon. 9901 is going to Gosport to-day for her torpedo trials. The R.R. engined Southampton flies beautifully, and Baird praises her loudly. Of course that is part of his job.
No Homer here at least only three evenings in the fortnight. My eyes are all inflamed with salt spray and rain-pellets, and we seldom stop before 8 p.m. and are then tired. As we often get out on the water by 6 a.m. you will see that our days are long. Corporal Bradbury and I relay each other, when possible, but usually both must be on the job.
T.E.S.
| Source: | GR 141 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 2 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