Contents lists
Updated June 2012
T. E. Lawrence to Ernest Thurtle
6.iii.35
Dear E.T.,
My Dorset 'fastness' is beset, they tell me, by pressmen: so I wander about London in a queer unrest, wondering if my mainspring will ever have a tension in it again.
So I'm not cheerful, actually; but sad at losing my R.A.F. existence. It was good, and I felt useful: also it was noticeably peaceful. I expect there is a good deal to be said for the comfortable shadow of a 'bombing plane' - now a term of abuse, but the only democratic weapon!
Thank you for the book. I look forward to reading it when I get home... which is after the ink-slingers go to their homes. Theodore Powys, the brother of Llewellyn, is a rare person.
We must meet some day. In fact, I will again attempt Johnson's Court!
Yours
T E Shaw
| Source: | DG 860 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 7 February 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