Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
Mount Batten:
7.XI.32.
This is written in a hurry, between breakfast and work. I will try and write better in a few days, when I send you a copy of my beastly Odyssey, which is just on the point of appearing.
I can't come next week-end. There is an incometax case of the R.A.F. Memorial Fund down for hearing on Friday and Saturday (11th and 12th, I think) and I am to stand-to as witness, in London.
Singapore is good news. I believe it is interesting, pleasant, comfortable... but a very expensive place. Better than the Persian Gulf as a living station. Not so interesting and historic as an area to supervise.
I had a hectic and curious time at Hythe, Bridlington, Calshot, Dover and what not (including Donibristle in Scotland!) during my motor-boat period. It came to an end suddenly, owing to an article in a Sunday newspaper, which frightened the Air Ministry. When S. is C.A.S. do ask him not to be easily frightened of the Press.
Batten has not changed, outwardly. I am now in Marine Section and working mainly on engines.
Enough. Everybody else is getting up and rushing up and down, clearing the hut. I must, too.
T.E.S.
| Source: | GR 189-90 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 3 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