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

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Bridlington

24.2.35

Dear Lorna,

I'm sorry to have been so slow in replying, but I've been run nearly off my feet lately, writing letters to tell everybody that I'm going away. I've had a lovely little card printed 'To tell you that in future I shall write very few letters' and I'm going to tuck one into each letter that I write for the next six months!

I was thinking of you today, when our dinghy was jumping over the sea at the harbour mouth here. You would have loved it: the little boat was going beautifully. Your father was looking on.

My cottage is waiting for me, and I'm hoping to like it very much. I shall not get there for a couple of weeks, and will then go away again... but I hope later on to settle down there a bit.

The address is Clouds Hill, Moreton, Dorset, so far as the Post Office is concerned. Actually I'm not in Moreton parish, but the postman comes on to me from there, with his sidecar. When I'm away he has a box, into which he dumps them!

As I'm only 40 miles from Hythe, it will be quite easy for me to run over there on a bike and see you, when the weather is nice. I shall enjoy a boat-ride, when that time comes.

Yours

T E Shaw

Note: Lorna Norrington, then aged 15, was daughter of Flight Lieutenant Norrington.

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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