BY HIMSELF HAUNTED. Almost About TE lawrence

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jasminium-of-the-west

I watched LoA last night (again!) and I had this idea…

So the part near the end where the military doctor and Lawrence are interacting, the part where the doctor is screaming “OUTRAGEOUS!!!” in Lawrence’s face and then Lawrence starts laughing, so the doctor slaps him, I half expected Ali to appear out of nowhere with that LOOK of his, like “don’t touch my bf or you die”. I was sadly disappointed, even though I’ve seen the movie before XD

….seems appropriate today!

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand….

a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last… Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

From the poem by

Yeats The Second coming

“ for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

Matthew Arnold from the poem Dover Beach via poetictouch

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What Goes Up...

You may have noticed my special interest in the technical aspects of Lawrence's later life choices, such as boats and aircraft. Flying machines I've been fascinated with from a very young age are zeppelins. In Germany the "Hindenburg" and her famous crash ended the era of these airborne luxuries. I've just now read that something similar happened before with a British zeppelin; the massive R101, and how Lawrence's life was influenced by this:

1929/30

"These Airships: one or two of them have trial trips soon. Some say to the States, others to Karachi . . . Well, by going just a few miles out of their course to the southward they can pass over the Ruba el Khali, the so-called ‘Empty Quarter’ of Arabia. This is a huge area of many hundred thousand square miles. No European has ever crossed it, nor any Arab any of us has actually questioned. All the Geographers refer to it annually as the great unsolved question of geography. Now, I want the trial trip of the airships to settle the Ruba el Khali."

The R101 — it's huge!

Lawrence had been interested in the exploration of the ‘Empty Quarter’ of the Arab Peninsula for some time. He had written to Sir Hugh Trenchard on Friday 12 July 1929 suggesting that the new airships, R100 and R101, could be put to good use if they flew over Southern Arabia:

One report has it that Lawrence told Field (the geographer who talked with Lawrence about exploring the "Empty Quarter") to fly out to India and return on the R101 as an observer: the dirigible was to be rerouted to fly back across the Ruba el Khali. Apparently Sefton Brancker, Director General of Civil Aviation, wrote to Field that this had been agreed.

The R101 left Cardington, despite forecasts of bad weather, on 4 October 1930, on her maiden voyage to India via Egypt. In the early hours of the morning of the 5th she crashed near Beauvais, France. There were six survivors and 48 killed, including the Minister for Air, Lord Thompson and Brancker. Nancy Astor had a seat on the airship but cancelled it.

The site of the crash — the R101 burned for 2 days, only steel was left over

Lawrence earlier asked George Bernard Shaw to suggest to Thompson that he, with his extensive knowledge of Arabia, would be a useful addition to the crew. Thompson replied on 24 July 1929 that he would consider the matter but that T.E.’s ‘passion for obscurity makes him an awkward man to place and would not improve his relations with the less subtle members of the crew’. Any possibility of his involvement was vetoed after his falling out with Thompson at the Schneider competition that September. {Excerpt Chapter "Henry Field" from 'Another Life: Lawrence after Arabia' by Andrew R B Simpson}

Thompson wasn't happy about TE's involvement with the 1929 Schneider Trophy Cup organizational team. Despite Wing Commander Smith’s reassurances to Trenchard, Lawrence did not stay out of the public gaze.

Aircraftsman Shaw and Wing Commander Sydney Smith

The press had been briefed specifically by C.P. Robertson not to photograph Shaw, and they agreed to comply. Trenchard, probably on the day he surveyed the course, saw Lawrence talking to Nancy Astor and told D’Arcy Greig, ‘Keep your eye on that damned fellow.’ On the day of the race General Italo Balbo, Italy’s Under-Secretary for Air, asked Lawrence to get the Italian slipway cleaned of some green scum that had built up and Lawrence saw to it. Lord Thompson, visiting the site, noticed a British aircraftman cleaning the site and demanded of ‘Shaw’ why this was happening. At that point a press photographer, unable to resist the temptation, coughed and pressed his shutter, photographing Lawrence and Thompson together. Of course then every other photographer at site did the same. And even though the photos weren't published in British newspapers, they were all over Italy and France, the competitors in the Schneider Trophy, and the rest of the world.

The darn photo at the Schneider Trophy Cup 1929

Thompson was miffed and this was the point he decided that 'Shaw' [...] was to ‘stop leading from the ranks and confine himself to the duties of an aircraftman’. Furthermore he was banned from leaving England, barred from flying in any service aircraft, and was not to speak to any ‘great men’ or women.

After Thompson died so tragically in the crash of the R101, these bans were void.

Wikipedia article about the R101 and its fatal crash: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R101

Video about the R101: https://youtu.be/gdPrUBkMgdE