T. E. Lawrence

Contents lists

1888-1910

1911

1912

1913

1914

1915-16

1917-18

1919-20

1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

Updated June 2012

T. E. Lawrence to Lorna Norrington

---

13 Birmingham St.
Southampton

24.xi.33

Dear Lorna, I'm rotten at answering letters. Yours has waited days - but other people's have waited weeks - and it has been on my conscience, which carries so much load these days that it is growing corns. 

To-day we began running in the first of the big boats, the 37 ½ foot things that I think you would like to try driving. As it was the first day we went ever so gently, and stopped again and again to do little jobs on her: but I could see that she was likely to be very good boat. The wind screen and sliding windows are far better than the old ones.  

There are seven more after this one, and they want 20 hours running each. So the job will go on for the next six weeks. I hope you will be able to work in a visit before they finish. 

Of course these are not skittish craft, like the dinghies, but solemn and respectable cabin cruisers. Yet they are splendid to drive, in dirty water. They bounce!  

Yours sincerely

T.E. Shaw

Please give Mrs. Norrington my regards. Say that cruisers are warm and comfortable boats, very fit for winter driving.

Back to top

 

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