Contents lists
T. E. Lawrence to Clare Sydney Smith
Hythe:
May 19. [1932]
I scribble a line to-night to my two female correspondents - Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Smith - to warn them that 'dinghies' are 'up.' I do about ten hours in them and on them daily, and that will go on till all 8 are as perfect as the Works can be persuaded into making them.
In the intervals of leisure I look after the little tank boat, and the two armoured boats.
On June 4 I am to
come to Dover with the little tank boat, for it to refuel 20 Squadron
during their six-weeks attachment to Dover. That sounds to me like
Manston for a week-end. I shall be free for at least 24 hours then - and
not afterwards till July.
The news about Basra is good, on thinking it over. If it must be, then
the sooner the better.
I'm sorry about Whitsun. I spent it yachting - in three dinghies, to be exact. Quite hard work, too, for one of them was addled.
T.E.S.
| Source: | GR 187-8 |
| Checked: | jw/ |
| Last revised: | 3 July 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