nerdyhistoryenjoyer

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Moreton, V.2025

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Clouds Hill, 18.V.2025

(the lay of the land + the bike shed under the cut)

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Anglebury House, Wareham, 17.V.2025

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St Martin's On-the-Walls, Wareham, 16.V.2025

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Here, T.E. Shaw is photographed on board the troopship H.M.T. Derbyshire in January 1927, on his way to the posting in India. The journey was, apparently, quite unpleasant, as the abridged excerpt below attests.

"The wash of the water, the Derbyshire swaying in a long slow swell, going over so far, swinging back: ever and again going further, with a muffled musical clash of crockery far away in her depths, oscillating back again -- now and then an upward heave, and the slow sinking back. My eyes began to swim, and to see gassy clouds in the corridor, between the blobs of the dim safety lamps. They twinkled so electric blue. Wave upon wave of the smell of stabled humanity [...] Belches of gas come back up my throat -- hullo, I'll be sick if I stay here for ever..."

The Letters of T.E. Lawrence. No. 292, p. 502.

Later, on February 2nd, T.E. writes to Edward Marsh from Karachi:

"The voyage out on a trooper (H.M.T. Derbyshire) was something vigorous in the way of experience. Your improper department has ruled that at sea three airmen can be packed into the airspace of two sailors. Kindly meant, no doubt, to keep us warm and comfortable. But in the Red Sea and the Gulf, we grew sick of each other's smell."

The Letters of T.E. Lawrence. No. 295, p. 505.

Finally, the wonderful image of T.E. exists online, but not (as far as I can find) in any higher quality. So, here we go.

[Edit: 19/12/24 // Magdalen College Archives.]

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small portrait

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Just a little nerdy footnote to the film snippet from Versailles for @nerdyhistoryenjoyer. The habit of walking around with your left hand in your pocket seems to be a family thing, there are hardly any pictures or moving images of A.W. Lawrence without his one hand in his pocket. Even at the funeral. Maybe he was also a notorious hand-fiddler like his older brother, but more consequent about stowing his left hand away.

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The Arab delegation with T.E. Lawrence and Prince Feisal (amongst others) at Versailles in 1919.

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T.E. Lawrence photographed by Flight Lieutenant R.G. Sims at White Cottage, Hornsea, winter of 1934-35. "Sims, a keen photographer, took what was to be the last series of [Lawrence's] portrait photographs." (Jeremy Wilson, 1990). The collection of photographs would be eventually be published in The Sayings and Doings of T.E. Lawrence, edited by Dr. Leo John de Freitas (1994).

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19. 5. ∞

As part of this process he slept in a coffin. I don't know whether he bought it or made it but he slept in it on hard boards without any pillows.

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T.E. Lawrence died 90 years ago today on the 19th May 1935

I thought I would share this tribute written at the time by his friend, Francis Yeats-Brown. Excuse poor quality of the screenshots!

Lawrence as I knew him, Francis Yeats-Brown, 24th May 1935, published in The Spectator Magazine

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'Monday, 13th May 1935. It was a fine and calm early morning. By mid-morning the sun had warmed the heath to produce broken cumulus cloud accompanied by a moderate east to north-east breeze blowing in the clear air. Pat Knowles remembered, "he came across to my house earlier than usual. It was one of those bright, still, early spring mornings, and the bird-song, clear and vibrant in the still air, had awakened him soon after five, so, seeing the smoke from my fire he came across. "Whilst I was getting breakfast the postman came. Shaw opened his mail and said that [Henry] Williamson wanted to see him. Over breakfast we discussed his letter. Shaw felt that it would be as well to let him come as soon as possible as he might not have the time to spare later. I said why not the next day? He thought it a good idea, and so it was decided […]; he would go down later and send off a telegram telling him to come for lunch the following day… "After breakfast Shaw brought out the Brough and I heard him running it up. I guess that he was cleaning and polishing and servicing it. […] I was working in the garden and heard him leave and heard the sound of the Brough's engine all the way to Bovington."' ‘At precisely 11.25 a.m. a telegram was dictated and the Post Office assistant wrote it out and sent it to Henry Williamson:

'From the Post Office Lawrence walked the short distance back across the road to the Red Garage. Walt Pitman, the pump attendant, asked him if he needed any fuel; Lawrence replied, “I'm alright, thanks,” then he climbed on to his Brough...’

T.E. never made it home. On his return, he slammed on the brakes attempting an emergency stop, swerving to avoid two young cyclists, Albert Hargreaves and Frank Fletcher. He was thrown into the air --head first, wearing no helmet-- and landed just beyond his motorbike.

Images, top to bottom: Portrait by Reginald Sims at the White Cottage, Hornsea, February 1935; The telegram sent to Henry Williamson; Photograph by Bill Knowles of T.E. at Clouds Hill on 'George VII', GW2275 in summer 1934 (possibly the only image of him on this ill-fated bike).

The above paragraphs are an abridged excerpt from Chapter 12, 'On the 13th Day of May' of The Last Days of T.E. Lawrence: A Leaf in the Wind, Paul Marriott and Yvonne Argent, 2002, pp. 102-3.

I expect at least some of this chapter has been shared many times before, but I still felt compelled to copy it out again. I think about T.E. every day, but over the course of the next week or so, he will likely take over the entirety of my brain: dear, dear man.

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British officers entering Jerusalem in 1917 through the Jaffa gate. T.E. Lawrence easy to spot.

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My all time favorite Ned footage

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The final script by Terence Rattigan for the planned Rank-production of "Lawrence of Arabia" , 1957. Dirk Bogarde was to star as T.E. Lawrence but the project was abandoned. Rattigan later reworked his script into the successful play "Ross" - a dramatic portrait", which premiered in 1950. The script was auctioned off in 2024 at Sotheby's for 2160 GBP.

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The small text at the bottom reads "Poor Arnie's head is too small to put both his eyes"

so far the best find in A Prince of Our Disorder... worms

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“Even T.E. Lawrence, who hardly knew the meaning of fear, was by Sassoon’s own account, terrified after only five minutes of his driving; ‘my methods of turning from side roads into main roads were abrupt in those days’ Sassoon added by way of explanation.”

— Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon (via thefoxhuntingman)