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Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Lord Carlow
14th September [1934]
Dear Carlow
It's an extraordinary place-name; but then, if one knew Gaelic all would be clear. As for fishing - but then, I'm not sporting. Nor do I greatly like eating the creatures.
On the whole, therefore, Southampton is better for me, especially in this heavenly weather. We are adding the best September I can recollect to a year that has been safely dry beyond the average. 1933 splendid. 1934 - splendid. What a 1935 we have earned! You do well to think of a new yacht. If our arrears of rain come, we will all creep into it (two by two) until it comes to rest on Ararat.
Your voyage sounds like a rough one, at least you were not wrecked like Noel Coward on Corsica from his M.L. But then, you are a navigator. Noah again, you see. Noah was a navigator.
My life? Average busy. In the last month it has been Wolverhampton, Kent, Nottingham, London, Plymouth. In between times I have been at Hythe. No more big boats, for this year. There are 5 dinghies to finish, a new Diesel to test in a round-bottomed hull, and a 24 foot boat for the Australian Air Force.
In the winter they propose to move me to Bridlington, in Yorkshire, to oversee the repair of the ten R.A.F. boats that work the bombing range there. That would cover November to February - and February 28 is world's end for me. It will be queer to wake up that morning and know that thence-forward there is no single thing that I must do. I have never owned my whole 24 hours - never in my life yet - and this liberty will come so abruptly that I shall be puzzled what to do with it. I wish there was any one thing in the world that I wanted to do. Perhaps vacancy will breed a wish.
Yes, when the Firefly comes speeding south again, give me a ring at Hythe and let us meet. I shan't have anything to give you, but your company is exhilarating. So do ring that 102 telephone; if you are in some friendly house that will let you borrow their mouth-piece for trunk calls. It lies on my conscience that you so often ring up vainly.
Yours ever
T.E. Shaw
[2 lines omitted]
| Source: | DG 818-9 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 18 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