Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
13, Birmingham Street,
Southampton.
19.VIII.33.
Movements.
Aug. 13-17 - Bridlington
Aug. 18 - road to Southampton
Aug. 19 - Hythe
Aug. 20 - Fareham
Aug. 21 - Cowes -preliminary trials of pinnace
Aug. 22 - Air Ministry
Aug. 23 - Cowes (acceptance trials)
Have now written to P.S. (who also wrote and wired while I was in Yorkshire) to say that you suggest me for Manston on Monday, Aug. 28. So would Sat. - Sund. (26 and 27) suit him, or Tuesday 29?
When he replies I will telegraph you and suggest that I be picked up at G/C Barton's aerodrome at Hamble either on Sat. morning, Aug. 26, and flown to Lympne: or on Monday Aug. 28, and flown to Manston. Later movements to be settled as need arises. I shall have to get back to Hamble somehow by Wed., 30 Aug.
Alas: for me to move so far for so long requires a time-table like H.R.H. to the Scillies. One wet day will crash the whole programme. After I leave the R.A.F. I shall be firm, and refuse ever to go anywhere to programme. I shall blow with the wind, sleep like a poppy and eat like a cormorant. After I leave the R.A.F.... and never a letter! Not one.... Heaven.
T.E.S.
Notes:
P.S. - Sir Philip Sassoon.
G/C Barton's aerodrome - Group-Captain Robert Barton, Air Services
Training School, Hamble.
| Source: | GR 221-2 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 4 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