T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 63

Tp Ca pt. R. de la Bere, R.A.F. College, Cranwell, Lincs. 13 Birmingham Street Southampton 26. XI. 33 Dear Prof Yours is the unkindest cut of all! What has happened is briefly this:- Twelve years ago I wrote some notes on the R.A.F. Depot ..... and in 1926 I added a word on Cranwell and sent it to Trenchard. A "book" of 30,000 words, only notes: no continuity or development. To Trenchard I faithfully pro- mised that it should not be published. Various people have read it (Sir John Salmond holds it now): one chapter was sent by me to your Journal - an innocuous chapter. An Irishman is lent the script by a friend of his to whom a friend of mine had without telling me lent it ....sub-loan upon sub-loan. "Hot stuff" says the Irishman and copies .... how much of it? God knows... but the Legion Journal is then sent a precis and the last three chapters by him, and comes out with a mash of it as an article by me. Thunderer f... the Commissioner of Police: from the Air Ministry....my head astonished but unbowed. The Legion Journal apologises next month. The Irishman has left his rooms - no address - and is laughing, probably. I am the poorer by three chapters, a visit to London, seven stamps (no, eight now) and three telegrams. So the R.A.F. College Journal will not reprint it. In its mangled form it does not appeal to the author: con- scit, that is. Probably it is better in potto. Has Dunn told you he has found a publisher? Good for him. Garnett called the stuff pretty good. I saw D. in his squadron at Lympne: very amusing. He was like a slightly irascible bantam-cock in a large harem of hens - who looked up or down to him with vast fluttering respect. From the officers I gathered that he keeps them in order, too. Only the adjutant escapes criticism, so long as he gives D. dual and plenty of it! Yours T.E.S.