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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to E. M. Forster
13 Birmingham Street
Southampton
26.iv.34
Dear E.M.F.
Got back from a coast-wise crawl in R.A.F. target boats to find two (amongst other) telegrams needing apology: one from you, suggesting a visit to S.S. with you present (Ah, if I could: company for heroes) and one from S.S. saying 'Come afterwards, if you like'.
Only, where is it? I should write to S.S. and say why I failed (for the best of reasons, surely, absence at sea) all I know is S.S. Heytesbury... but where is it, as post-towns go. Not far from Wylie, but that helps my bike, not my letter.
I hope you found him assured and glad? I'd like a line, if you can manage to put anything on paper about him.
I hear that heath fires are raging at Clouds Hill, and am sad and afraid for the little place. I've grown to love it, I fear. What fools we become!
Yours
T.E.S.
| Source: | DG 810-11 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 17 January 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