T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 56

To T.E. Beaumont, "Helmi" 63 Broad St. Scott Hill, Derbyshire Checked by arrival Ozone Hotels Bridlington Yorks 31. 1. 36 Dear Beaumont, I vary ... between my cottage (Clouds Hill, Moreton, Dorset: my only permanent address) & this place, where I'm watching ten boats under repair for the R.A.F. Very full engaged, ... always dodging about ... like a flea with a bad conscience. My time runs out a month hence, ... I shall be very sorry. The work passes my time, ... the last twelve years would have been long, without it. Yes, I shall be really sorry. Someone (Mrs Bernard Shaw, I think it was) sent me a copy of Major Brough's book. It wasn't as silly as the Sunday Papers tried to make out: but there wasn't anything to it. Bray is a quite honest but not very wise fellow, who was in Jeddah for a whole night at the beginning of the Arab business: then went to Mesopotamia. I have not heard ... him for years, but there was nothing in the book to which one could object. No, Clouds Hill would ... look right with a valet! It is a cottage in the middle of a great heath, of bracken ... heather, ... rooms; no bed ... no kitchen, ... no drains, but a spring in garden, ... a feeling of utter peace. I may go there for a while after my discharge ... Yours, T.E. Shaw You ask me for my foot size . . . it's six, usually! But don't go & bu... your firm, pinching slippers off them, I - hope it prospers, ... yourself. I meant to try ... see you, but am so busy when here, ... so often in the South, that I can't either find time to get to you, or security to make an engagement. Let's leave it till after March 1.