Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
Mount Batten:
Saturday [25 March 1933].
Good: I shall be at Worthydown on Fiiday next, ready collection. Please make the hour 2 p.m., because then the pilot will have a quiet lunch. The Thursday-to-London isn’t, I think, possible. W/Cmdr. Andrews is now C.O. He shapes pretty well, too.
I wrote to P.S. telling him that I had sadly decided to get out. The feeling is like the sparrow fledgeling's, as it goes forth.
What a pen, what a pen! Nothing of concern here. Regards.
S.
Notes
P.S. - Sir Philip Sassoon
This letter is printed in The Golden Reign as though it was
written in early February 1933. Lawrence applied for discharge from the
RAF on 6 March and wrote to Sir Philip Sassoon about it on 21 March. He
visited the Smiths at Manston from 31 March to 2 April.
| Source: | GR 203-4 |
| 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