Contents lists
T. E. Lawrence to his mother
338171 A/c Shaw R.A.F.
Miranshah
Waziristan
India
10.7.28
This will be a note only. Very late, and working hard, doing some photography (developing and printing) as well as my office job, owing to the photographer going ill. Your letter to here came on Sunday.
Yes, I think I shall like this place: though they talk of bringing me back to Peshawar. I hope not: this is quieter: and we are not allowed outside the fort walls, so that I have not to imprison myself.
Philby is embittered, by not having succeeded politically. I got all I wanted, and so can afford to be kindly towards him. That angers him worse. A very nice fellow, but queer: very queer. Short of money, now, I believe. I'm glad you met Mrs. Shaw. It's very hard to be a great man's wife. She succeeds with it. I like her. Hope you'll meet G.B.S. some time. He is like a tonic: and very kind. A most sensible, vigorous old man. The Chingford people want to buy all Pole Hill, and exchange it, with the forest people, for some strips of forest, in the village, which they would like to make into roads and things. I do not feel inclined to help them: and I doubt whether they will attempt forced purchase. Don't worry about Arnie's baby. I think Arnie hopes to get his new book adopted as a text-book. They are profitable things.
I'm glad Leeds has got the Museum. Lots of people grudged it him.
I'm doing the office job which used to be done by a clerk here: a lot of typing, and that sort of thing. Enough, but not too much for each day. The first date I can come back is the early summer of 1930: and that only if this film gets itself over next year.
N.
Source: | HL 374-5 |
Checked: | jw/ |
Last revised: | 12 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