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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
Plymouth
24.IV.33.
Yes, those two quarry excursions were good and unexpected.
Since then I have seen Sir John Salmond, who told me that the doctors hold just a hope that their radium treatment may save his brother.
His conclusion, after a long talk, was that perhaps I ought to be posted to Felixstowe, and be at call of E.6., in the Air Ministry, whenever they wanted me. I am waiting now for him to give effect to this decision, and shall leave the Biscuit here behind me, meanwhile.
There is no truth, I think, in that Hollywood story - or, at least, if they are making a film of the Seven Pillars, they have not sent me any word. Anybody has a right to make such a film, and no consent from me is necessary for it is a legal maxim that there is no property in events. If a thing is true, it cannot be copyright.
I spent a few days in my cottage lately, and liked it. The quietness of it, and the having nothing that I must do, were like the quiet patches in a storm. However, Sir John's decision puts the cottage out of count for some time!
Yours,
T.E.S.
| Source: | GR 209-10 |
| 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