Recently during a short break in the Poole area of Dorset where yours truly once served in the Royal Marines we took a trip in the Alfa to the home of T. E. Lawrence at Clouds Hill near Wareham now administered by the National Trust.

Nearby is Bovington Camp with tanks thundering by from time to time, Clouds Hill once the home of Thomas Edward Lawrence perhaps better known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. I will not say much about this renowned figure after all so much has been written about him. Tiny Clouds Hill does give a flavour of the man solitary, happy absorbed by his books and music although much of his book collection is long since gone. After Lawrence’s death, his books, one of the most valuable assets in his estate, were sold by his executors.

In the summer of 1922 he completed the ‘Oxford Text’ of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, his account of the Arab campaign. While serving in the Army he rented Clouds Hill, built in1808 a two up two down cottage, to have the peace to write away from army routine. There he revised Seven Pillars of Wisdom it took him a long time as by now he felt remote from the text and critical of its style. Later he transferred to the RAF at this time 1925 he bought Clouds Hill.

Serving in India he sometimes let the cottage or loaned to friends. He returned to England in 1929 by which time Seven Pillars of Wisdom had become a great success. A popular abridgement Revolt in the Desert became a bestseller. He also wrote The Mint about his time in the RAF and started to translate Homer’s Odyssey for an American publisher.

On 13 May 1935, returning from Bovington on his Brough Superior motor-bike Lawrence was involved in a road accident. He died six days later without regaling consciousness. He was 46.

We went onto Wareham and St. Martin’s church to see the effigy of T. E. Lawrence there which was placed there in 1939. While Lawrence was interred at St. Nicholas church Moreton nine miles away.

I do have an early edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom in my Collectors books section.