Contents lists
T. E. Lawrence to Ernest MacKay
RAF
Depot
Drigh
Road
Karachi
18.1.28
Dear Mackay
They came back in great form, delighted with themselves, and the objects of general envy and admiration.
I am sorry they stayed so long. It was a tax upon the kindness of Mrs. Mackay and yourself. However you have acquired merit. If the Recording Angel has not made the due entries on your conduct sheets, please call me as witness.
They told me that you still hoped I'd make a chance to run up: but I fear it is out of the question. Unless the R.A.F. order me to move. I intend to stay within the bounds of this camp for the duration of my spell in India. After all, a year has passed. There cannot be more than four to do... and there may be only two.
Do you see that Woolley has found some more gold stuffs? Drugs, horrid drugs, in the eyes of archaeologists... but how the public gape after these things. Full pages in the Illustrated. You have Tutankh to thank for the new status of archaeology. Woe's me, I suppose I'll never dig anything again.
However, put me back in England and you can keep your East!
With best regards,
Yours ever
T. E. Shaw
Incidentally they returned me your Parsifal, thinking it was mine! We are getting it ready for return... trying too, to find something as big and strong to go with it!
Yours
T.E.
| Source: | DG 566-7 |
| Checked: | dn/ |
| Last revised: | 6 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