Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
Myrtle Cottage,
John Street,
Hythe,
Southampton
Thursday 5 (?) Feb. [1932]
F/Lt. Beauforte-Greenwood and party have been here all day, and I have not stopped running about. There is a lot to do when they are here: and when they are not.
My immediate duty is to compile a handbook upon the 37½ foot R.A.F. cruiser by Sunday night. As this is a month's job, I shall be very much in need of your prayers! So I have wired to say that this week-end is out of the question.
On Monday I am to go to Plymouth, for 2 or 3 days: then to London for 2 or 3 days that brings me to the week-end. If I can get to London, all well and good. I can Manston easily: just for Sat. night, I expect. Or I may have to return here. It depends on the progress the shipyard make, meanwhile, on their latest job.
November is a long time, and something may be possible between now and then.
I wish life in Hythe was easier. I work all day on the boats or in the yard; and at night with reports or logs or handbook. No music: no books: no rides. Too much motor-boating!
I will let you know as soon as I know myself, about futures. All I can see now is that I am hard at work till Sunday night. It will be a real rush to get through.
Yrs.
T.E.S.
| Source: | GR 180-81 |
| 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