Contents lists
T. E. Lawrence to his mother
338171 A/c Shaw
R.A.F. Cattewater
Plymouth
12.3.29
There, that is the address. I like the little camp. Only 100 of us live in it: the other 50 airmen are natives, and live in the town. The huts and sheds fill the whole of a little promontory (like a petrified lizard's bones) which runs out from a green hill into the Sound, facing Plymouth across about a mile of water.
The camp is comfortable, and the airmen say it is a happy place. So that is hopeful hearing: only everything is brand-new as yet, and nothing has yet settled in or down. The sunlight and the sea's nearness (50 yards on one side of our hut, 30 yards on the other) and the grass, make it lively. To get into Plymouth is a break-neck ride up and down twisting hill roads. Wherefore most people with bicycles ride out into the country, and take a ferry when they want to see the town. Nothing else, I fancy. I hope Bob got his little pamphlet: it was posted on Thursday, in London.
N.>
| Source: | HL 375 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 14 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