Creating History: Lowell Thomas & Lawrence of Arabia

Lawrence and Thomas

A new on-line exhibit explores how American journalist Lowell Thomas helped create the 'Lawrence of Arabia' legend. Clio Visualising History has put together a dynamic website that tells the story of how "journalism can create legends and such legends can make history".

"Searching for a World War I success story entrepreneurial American journalist, Lowell Thomas, encounters an extraordinary figure in Jerusalem: a British army officer, T.E. Lawrence, who, dressed in Arab robes, had helped capture the Turkish port of Akaba. With a cameraman in tow and a ton of equipment, Thomas follows Lawrence into the desert, turns his footage into a multimedia spectacle seen by millions, and helps create "Lawrence of Arabia". Lawrence’s new celebrity and brilliant mind earn him a seat at the table when the map of the Middle East is redrawn."

The website can be found at http://www.cliohistory.org/thomas-lawrence/

Some reading suggestions

Books by or about T.E. Lawrence would fill a fair-sized library. Recently, in  connection with S.F. Newcombe's involvement in the region and its politics, I have been exploring the Israeli narrative of the years that followed the end of the British Mandate - what is in fact an Israeli re-assessment and re-evaluation of the evidence that has brought the region to its current situation. The following is a suggested selection of books on Lawrence and on the region, past and present:   

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA by Jeremy Wilson, 1989, William Heinemann Ltd, 0-434-87235-0

This is the authorised biography of T.E. Lawrence, running to more than 1150 pages (with notes) and essential reading for anyone interested in Lawrence, the Middle East and the history of the Arab Revolt during the First World War. Jeremy Wilson continues to publish Lawrence material through his Castle Hill Press in limited editions, typeset to fine-press standards and printed by high-quality printers.

HERO: THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF LAWRENCE OF ARABIA by Michael Korda, 2010, Harper Publications, 978-0-06-171261-6

In contrast, this is the latest biography of T.E. Lawrence published at the end of 2010. It is aimed at a general audience but is nonetheless the first major biography of Lawrence for some years. At least one book on or featuring Lawrence has been published every year since he died in 1935, along with a handful during his lifetime. Korda's biography relies on previous biographies when narrating Lawrence's life story but also brings in other aspects, such as his role as a writer and publisher as well as an assessment of his political ideas for creating a post WW1 Middle East.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA'S SECRET AIR FORCE by James Hynes, 2010, Pen and Sword Aviation, 978-1-84884-266-3 

This book has been discussed in a previous posting (26 August 2010) and was also published in 2010, continuing the consistent publishing history of books on Lawrence.

LIFE AT THE CROSSROADS: A HISTORY OF GAZA by Gerald Butt, 2009, Rimal Publications, 978-9963-610-39-6  

A comprehensive yet concise chronicle of Gaza's history from ancient times to the end of the 2008-2009 Israeli war against the territory’s Hamas-led administration. Newcombe knew the town well from before WW1 and praised the Rev. Dr. Sterling of the Church Missionary Society for his  medical work in Gaza where the CMS opened the first hospital in the Holy Land in 1907, continuing today as the Al Ahli Arab (Anglican) Hospital. Newcombe's raid behind enemy lines contributed to unlocking the stalemate over the Turkish held Gaza-Beersheba line prior to the Third Battle of Gaza. 

PALESTINIAN WALKS: NOTES ON A VANISHING LANDSCAPE, by Raja Shehadeh, 2008, Profile Books, 978-1-86197-899-8

Palestinian Walks was the winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize and covers seven walks that the author, a Palestinian lawyer and writer living in Ramallah, regularly took over a 27 year period, chronicling the different stages of Palestinian history. It is a story that is infused with the author's pain and anger without the excesses of pure polemic. Jimmy Carter wrote: 'Palestinian Walks provides a rare historical insight into the tragic changes taking place in Palestine.' Stewart Newcombe also walked this way - before, during and after the First World War. His experiences took him on paths that were often contrary to the direction of his own government. I would recommend that you walk with Shahedeh and Newcombe to discover an endangered landscape. 

The same landscape, this time 'uncovered' by an Israeli, is portrayed in:

SACRED LANDSCAPE: THE BURIED HISTORY OF THE HOLY LAND SINCE 1948, by Meron Benvenisti, 2002, University of California Press, 978-0-520-23422-2

Benvenisti was deputy mayor of Jerusalem from 1971 to 1978 and as a young man accompanied his father, a distinguished geographer, throughout the Holy Land charting a Hebrew map that would rename Palestinian sites and villages (sites and names meticulously charted by Conder, Kitchener, Newcombe and the Palestine Exploration Fund) to correspond with Israel's ancestral homeland. In doing so, Benvenisti's quiet outrage, combined with meticulous scholarship, makes this a formidable critique of the Zionist myth.

"Landscape is the work of the mind," wrote Simon Schama. "It's scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock."

In Sacred Landscape, Benvenisti explains how an Arab landscape, physical and human, was transformed into an Israeli Jewish state.

Newcombe and Lawrence on film

Colonel Brighton, centre in uniform

While much is known about T.E. Lawrence, much is also misunderstood. The film Lawrence of Arabia built upon the legend but also did much to create that misunderstanding through a misrepresentation of the facts not solely confined to artistic limitations. In the forthcoming biography of Stewart Newcombe, In the Shadow of the Crescent,  I  consider the conflicting aspects of Lawrence’s screen and popular persona with the real Lawrence. One question that can be answered here is: if Newcombe played such a significant role in the life of the real Lawrence, then where was Colonel Newcombe in the film?

The following dialogue is based on a scene written by the screenwriter Michael Wilson from an early draft of the screenplay for the film Lawrence of Arabia. Although it differs in dialogue to the version that was actually filmed, the scene will be familiar to those who know the film. To set the scene, T.E. Lawrence, accompanied by his servant Farraj, has just arrived in Cairo after leading the Arab army into Aqaba. They are both exhausted and thirsty after crossing the Sinai and their Arab robes are caked with desert sand. Lawrence leads his young friend straight to the Officers’ Club where the presence of two disheveled Arabs naturally causes quite a stir.

When they reach the bar, Lawrence orders two ginger-beer shandies from a startled bartender who hastily informs them that the bar is reserved for British officers. Lawrence replies: ‘I‘m well aware of that, and more‘s the pity. But we’ll have two shandies all the same.’ Colonel Newcombe enters to see what all the fuss is about. He approaches the two Arabs.

‘Excuse me….’ he begins to ask, before recognising his friend. ‘Good Lord. It’s really you.’

Lawrence turns. ‘Good morning, Colonel,’ he replies. ‘Would you tell the barman we’ve raised a mighty thirst? You got my telegram from Ismailia?’ Newcombe informs him that they have been scouring all of Egypt for him.

‘How the devil did you get here?’ he asks, incredulously.

‘Couldn’t get a train - too much red tape - no priority, no tickets. So I stole a motorbike.’ Newcombe indicates to the barman to pour their drinks and while they both gulp down the refreshingly cold liquid he informs Lawrence that General Allenby will want to see him at once.

‘Allenby?’ asks Lawrence.

‘The new C-in-C. General Murray’s no longer with us.’

‘That’s a step in the right direction.’ Then Lawrence looks into Newcombe’s eyes. ‘Or is it? What’s Allenby like?’

‘You’ll find out soon enough. He’s known as ‘The Bull.’’

Another man steps up to the bar and introduces himself as Lowell Thomas. Newcombe informs Lawrence that he is an American journalist.

Sensing a scoop, Thomas states bluntly: ‘You’re the man who took Aqaba.’

‘The Arabs took it,’ Lawrence corrected him. ‘I went along for the ride.’

Newcombe, anxious not to disclose this important military success, explodes: ‘The story has not been confirmed!’

But Thomas has his story. ‘It has been now,’ he announces triumphantly. With notepad and pen in hand he probes for more information. ‘How many men were with you?’

Newcombe is enraged. ‘He can give no interview until he has reported to General Allenby.' He turns to Lawrence: 'Let’s go. You can change in my digs.’

Lawrence examines his dirty garments. ‘Change, why? They are a bit soiled but I have no other uniform.’

Exasperated, Newcombe takes him by the elbow. ‘Come along, then.’

Lawrence and Farraj are led off through the crowd of curious onlookers.

 

In 1961, Robert Bolt took over the task of rewriting the screenplay for director David Lean’s epic film Lawrence of Arabia from Michael Wilson, a Hollywood writer blacklisted during the McCarthy anti-communist witch-hunts. Bolt, himself an ex-member of the Communist Party and with strong anti-war leanings, kept a fair proportion of Wilson’s dramatic structure but made significant dialogue alterations which slimmed down the original script. In the scene shown above, Bolt changed its emphasis to include evidence of what he saw as Lawrence’s egomania. Bolt’s Lawrence was clearly neurotic and this key scene would eventually contain dialogue that emphasised this side of Lawrence’s character.

Another important change was made to the final version of the screenplay whereby Colonel Newcombe became Colonel Harry Brighton (played by Anthony Quayle), a composite caricature of a typical British officer, named after the archetypical British seaside town. A blunt professional soldier acting as a foil to Peter O’Toole’s angst-ridden portrayal of Lawrence, Bolt saw him thus: ‘…Brighton has to stand for the half admiring, half appalled disturbance raised by Lawrence in minds quite wedded to the admirable and inadequate code of English decency.’ Here was a description of a character created to fulfill a dramatic device, a kind of man for all seasons who bore no relation to the real Colonel Newcombe. He was written out of history, as portrayed as drama, and therefore out of the popular misinterpretation of the Lawrence legend. Bolt wrote a scene, cut and then later restored in 1989, in which Allenby said to Lawrence: ‘I believe your name will be a household name when you‘d have to go to the War Museum to find who Allenby was.’ It would also require determined research to find out who Newcombe was. 

Newcombe at TEL's funeral

Stewart Newcombe appears on a contemporary newsreel taken at the Dorset funeral of Lawrence, positioned to the right and in the middle of the wheeled bier, helping to steady the coffin with his left hand as it is pulled along the church path and out onto the country lane leading to the grave. On that crisp spring afternoon, 21 May 1935, surrounded by friends from all the periods of his life, Lawrence became once again Lawrence of Oxford, of Carchemish, of Cairo, and most famously and persistently, of Arabia - although as Sir Ronald Storrs once pointed out, ‘of any place for a little while’. For others gathered at the grave he was simply Shaw of the R.A.F.

A Cartographer's Tool Kit et al

Theodolite and Gunter's Chain

A Cartographer’s Tool Kit

On the eve of the First World War, a team of military cartographers and surveyors, under Stewart Newcombe’s command, was sent out to measure and map a strategic triangle of southern Palestine - today’s Negev Desert – as part of a secret survey carried out on behalf of the British War Office between January and May of 1914. The survey of the region known since Biblical times as the Wilderness of Zin would gather vital information about a previously uncharted area, considered to be of military importance in the run up to any future conflict with Turkey. It would provide the Director of Military Operations in London with the missing piece of a jigsaw that was started by Conder and Kitchener’s extensive Survey of Western Palestine in the 1880’s, carried out on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund - the P.E.F. 

The Wilderness of Zin survey proved to be the last opportunity before the First World War to systematically gather reliable intelligence on the ground. By the time the War Office got their maps of the Sinai and the Negev, a shift to visual air reconnaissance had been introduced, augmented in the latter half of 1916 by photo reconnaissance. Some years later, Newcombe himself would explore a method of land contouring by use of the Thompson Stereoplotter on aerial photographs. But in the great surveys of Palestine, Sinai and the Wilderness of Zin the surveying teams in the field used the simple tools of their trade – theodolite, compass and measuring chain - essential components of a cartographer’s tool kit. What were also needed were ingenuity, courage, diplomacy and tact when dealing with local tribes or Ottoman authority. Newcombe was highly praised by T.E. Lawrence for possessing these qualities in abundance and paving the way for future travellers in the desert.

Suez Canal showing Sinai to the east

A resourceful and tenacious character, Stewart Newcombe’s life epitomized those robust Victorian qualities that helped paint the globe pink but whose life encompassed the eventual shift in Britain’s relations with its subject peoples and saw the beginning of the fall of the last of the great world empires, a life that spanned Pax Britannica to decolonisation. He died in 1956, just days before Gamal Nasser of Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal and three months before the débacle that became known as the Suez Crisis created shock waves across the region, when Israeli incursions into the Canal Zone "forced" Britain and France to attempt to regain control under a pre-arranged agreement known as the Sèvres Protocol. Politically it was a shoddy operation; militarily it was of benefit only to Israel which gained an outlet for international shipping through the Straits of Tiran, an 8 mile bottleneck between the Sinai Peninsula and Saudi Arabia that the Egyptians had previously kept shut with strategically placed guns to close off access for Israeli ships entering the Red Sea for routes to and from Africa and Asia. The fiasco also helped bring about the abandonment of the British policy of slowly nurturing the colonised people of Africa to self-determination. The cry now was for Britain’s immediate departure. Suez had been fought over by Britain for the last time; the crisis would prove to be the death knell not just of the British Empire but to all the empires of Western Europe.

Stewart Newcombe was not to witness the inevitable conclusion to the dismantling of the British Empire, but he would not have been surprised at its outcome.

A wind of change blowing across the Arab world

Newcombe had once helped protect the canal by mapping its eastern approaches. Where maps then held the power, cheap transistor radios were the new weapons, distributed widely by Nasser to spread the word of nationalism and unity across Africa and the Arab world. Today, the internet is the weapon of choice where the rallying cry of a new generation can be heard across the Arab world on Facebook and Twitter - a wind of change that is felt more keenly when the cry is heard by those without access to the media. The use of force by regimes against its own people now changes the situation, as seen recently in Libya and Bahrain, while around the world the wheels of diplomacy turn slowly. Before a U.N. resolution was passed on 17 March 2011 the international community appeared reticent to reach an agreement on how to intervene – in most cases it was an oil-driven paralysis that had not affected their response to Egypt, in others it is the risk of setting a precedent when their own domestic condition may trip them up in the future.  

Today we exist with the consequences left over from the end of the age of empire, where an occasional aftershock pricks our collective conscience, yet one more seismic shift in the new world order – a constant reshuffling of the pack. Regimes come and go - our response to them is judged by history.

Japan and the Newcombes

In the 1870’S Newcombe’s father, Edward, helped build the first railways in Japan under the accelerated industrialisation of the period known as the Meiji Restoration. Two of Newcombe’s brothers were born in Osaka. It was therefore inevitable that Stewart Newcombe should have become interested in engineering, and especially in the engineering and construction of railways. During the scramble for Africa he helped push the railways through Sudan; by 1917 he was to prove equally adept at blowing up railway lines in the Hejaz. My thanks and thoughts go to the followers of this blog from Japan who, my stats tell me, have continued to visit during the last few days.

A Prelude to War - Mapping Palestine, Sinai and the Wilderness of Zin

Eretz Magazine

I recently wrote an article for Eretz, a bi-monthly magazine published in Israel, which has now appeared in English after first being published in Hebrew translation last November. The magazine focuses on "the heritage, geography history and culture of the Land of Israel and the Jewish People". The article looks at the surveys of the Negev and Sinai deserts carried out by and on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Society (P.E.F.) both for peaceful and military purposes and naturally features Stewart Newcombe, T.E. Lawrence and C.L. Woolley.

As Newcombe was firmly in the Arab camp and a strong advocate for a bi-nation state in Palestine, circa 1922-1948, I was not sure if his anti-Zionist stance would sit well with the readers of Eretz. He held strong views on what he considered were acceptable levels of Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine in the years between the World Wars, based on his long study of the region, its people, infrastructure and resources. He tried in his own way to come up with proposals that were fair to both sides, as they stood at that time, but as he tended to side with anti-Zionist European Jews his arguments are often seen as biased and at variance with the parallel Zionist movement as well as his own government. 

The article highlights the role played by the P.E.F. in charting the history and culture of a thriving Palestinian society within Ottoman Greater Syria. In mapping the historical geography of the Holy Land, and in meticulously chronicling the process, the P.E.F. sought to recover a landscape that was already familiar to the Christian imagination. By retrieving the original map of the Bible from place-names of a predominiantly Arab and Muslim country, the P.E.F. documented an urban and rural geography that would be largely transformed following the future development and colonisation by European Jews, a group which by then had not fully emerged as a likely candidate for the 'redemption' of the land after its neglect by an Ottoman government in decline. 

Wilderness of Zin

The article also discusses Newcombe's secret military surveys, largely in the Negev region, carried out on behalf of the War Office under the guise of a scientific survey for the P.E.F. prior to the First World War. His post-war joint surveys with the French for the Boundary Commission, delineating the borders of the British Mandate of Palestine and the French Mandate for Syria, are still relevant today in Israel's relations with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. This intimate involvement with the country would naturally contribute to his strongly-held views on its future, leading to his association with organisations like the Palestine Information Centre in London where he held the post of Honorary Secretary.

Most Israelis today - at least the "reading" public - accept that the Zionist narrative runs parallel to an Arab narrative and that both have equal merit. There is definitely a growing interest in the Palestine narrative and an attempt to get a more balanced picture of the Mandate and Pre-Mandate years - including an interesting re-evaluation of the merits of the Mandate itself and in subjects represented by figures like Newcombe, the British Empire and the P.E.F.     

Newcombe believed that the Arabs would not vanish like the mist before the sun of Zion and therefore thought that it was imperative that they had fair representation in the contest for the hearts and minds of those in lofty power who would ultimately bring about the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration, with all its stipulations - important provisos which supported his firm belief that only by respecting native interests could you achieve a lasting consensus. He worked tirelessly towards that aim after consulting the opinions of his many Jewish and Moslem friends before reaching his proposals that he hoped would satisfy both Moslems and Jews as well as best serving the interests of the British Empire.

Entrance to Islamic Centre

Whatever his lasting impact on mapping the region or subsequently in his life-long interest and involvement in Islamic affairs, Newcombe refused to be satisfied and once exclaimed, 'I wish I could have done more'. A legacy to his prodigious efforts can be found in the maps, papers and records held in government files or in libraries alongside those of his friend T.E. Lawrence, with whom he will be forever connected. But perhaps it the invaluable assistance he gave in helping to establish the East London Mosque, the first purpose built mosque in London, that Newcombe's legacy to his Muslim friends is best illustrated.

Eretz can be found at www.eretz.com

A Mosque for London

The recent discovery of Stewart Newcombe’s involvement in the creation and development of one of London’s first mosques certainly adds a further dimension to his life and I wish to thank the archivist at the mosque concerned for his invaluable help in supplying the supporting documentation that illustrates Newcombe’s considerable contribution to this commendable endeavour. A full and public recognition for the assistance of the archive department will be made in the appropriate manner once the section has been completed.

It could be argued that coming at a time of national emergency during the early years of the Second World War the benefits of keeping the empire’s millions of Muslims on board were obvious and a mosque in London was an absolute minimum requirement, one that was "worthy of the tradition of Islam and worthy of the capital of the British Empire".

As a non-Muslim, Newcombe was not alone in giving his time and expertise to the enterprise. Others sitting on the management committee included Sir Ernest Hotson, who as Acting Governor of Bombay in 1931 was shot twice in the chest at point blank range by V. Gogate, a young revolutionary student who spent the next 6 years in prison alongside Mahatma Ghandi. Hotson remarkably survived, going on to help secure his assailant’s release and later sending him a substantial sum of money to help towards completing his education in politics. The cheque was duly accepted and proved to be a worthy donation in Gogate’s future political career in an independent India. Hotson served with distinction alongside Newcombe as Joint Honorary Secretary until his death two years later, making way for Newcombe to take over the role single-handed.

One other non-Muslim sitting on the mosque’s management committee was Lord Winterton who was recently mentioned in the Daily Telegraph (24.08.2010) for setting the desert on fire in his own inimitable manner:

Daily Telegraph - Lawrence of Arabia's secret X flights revealed in diary

This article refers to an entry in the latest Lawrence book to be published in which Winterton is mentioned as burning the breakfast for a group of men belonging to X Flight, a squadron of the Royal Flying Corps which in this book has been dubbed ‘Lawrence of Arabia’s Secret Air Force’. Of course, this group was not a ‘secret’ and not exclusively ‘Lawrence’s’.

Based on the diary of Flight Sergeant George Hynes, this latest book on Lawrence adds an attractive dust cover to the bookshelves but little else in the way of new or startling information on the desert war, except perhaps that it confirmed that it was George, on behalf of his fellow X Flight colleagues, who initiated the idea of sending a piece of rush-grass originally brought back from Aqaba to Lawrence’s brother Arnie when Lawrence died in 1935 with a request that it be placed inside his coffin. But even this small detail was already accessible to those with a keen eye in the form of a note in Paul Marriott and Yvonne Argent's book The Last Days of T. E. Lawrence, A Leaf in the Wind.

Congratulations must go to Henry Wilson and his team at Pen and Sword Publishers who have yet again produced an evocative and attractive cover, in keeping with the range of cover illustrations they produce across all military subjects. By making accessible information that was only previously available in archives, Pen and Sword have produced a book that is worth reading not only by Lawrence aficionados but by aviation buffs, for whom this title is also intended.

The green, green grass of home...

Informed viewers of the Rory Stewart programmes on Lawrence will of course have noticed the error made in the first few minutes of the first programme. Stewart stated that Lawrence was born into a middle class family in Oxford where he later went to school and university. As any Lawrence follower will know, he was born in Wales. One other error, repeated twice, was that while Lawrence was working with the Arabs his two brothers were killed on the Western Front. Of course, these events took place while Lawrence was behind his desk at the Military Intelligence Department based in the Savoy Hotel in Cairo. His brother Frank died in May 1915 and Will in September of the same year. It was to be a full year later that Lawrence made his first visit to the desert in October 1916 and the famous meeting with Feisal. Nevertheless, it seems that the programme was generally well received and Stewart's enthusiasm for his subject was refreshing. These errors did not detract from the general message of the film, which was well expressed, despite perpetuating the myth that there was only one member of the British Military Mission to the Hejaz driving the revolt forward. It is interesting to note that Stewart Newcombe was also born in Wales, although like Lawrence this gave him no particular claim to be called Welsh. Interesting still when you consider that the other famous railraider, Captain Henry Hornby, was also from Wales. Now there's a coincidence! 

The photo above shows Newcombe standing on the left wearing a white robe and Hornby on the far right in British military uniform and Arab headdress.

The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia

Part Two of the Rory Stewart documentary, The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia, will be shown on BBC2 on 23 January 2010 at 7pm. This is a revised time from the one originally advertised.

Part One can still be seen via the BBC iplayer at The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia until the 23 January, although only in the UK. 

For those interested in early reviews - of Part One - look at the Daily Telegraph's  Lawrence of Arabia's legacy and the paradox of power and The Scotsman's The TV Review

Rory Stewart and the Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia

Rory Stewart presents the first part of his two-part documentary The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia on Saturday 18 January 2010 at 8.00pm on BBC2.

"And I believe if our generals and politicians could see what Lawrence saw, then we would not be in the mess we're in today."

Rory Stewart is the Executive Chairman of the British charity the Turquoise Mountain Foundation and Director of the Carr Center for Human rights Policy at Harvard University. Having walked across Afghanistan he published a book entitled The Places in Between about his experiences and his observations. It became a New York Times bestseller and was named one of the New York Times' 10 notable books in 2006 and was hailed by the Times as a 'flat-out masterpiece'.

A Christmas Message

What young boy would not want a Christmas letter like this from Lawrence of Arabia? The following is the opening part of a charming letter from Lawrence to his godson Stewart Lawrence Newcombe, the son of S.F.N and Elizabeth. Stewart was variously known as James or Jimmy by the family but also addressed by Lawrence as My Lord Duke, Monster, Horror and Object. This letter was written on 20th December 1934, when Jimmy was 14 years old and Lawrence was only a few months away from leaving the R.A.F, and the fatal bike crash that killed him:

"Dear James, (alias Stewart a word I only cry out when about to be sick - alias Monster, plus or minus other things)

Dear James, as I said before Ahem

Dear James

Third time lucky. We're off. Merry Christmas. No, I don't really mean that. I follow the Golden Rule. May you have a quiet Christmas with nothing abnormal to eat. Avoid gluttony, above all. Remember your figure, and the figures your parents ought to have. If you observe them over-eating clear your throat gently, to attract attention, and say 'A bit high, this bird?' that will put them off it. If they bring in plum puddings and things, remark in a blasé accent ...the normal speech, I mean, of Eton ...'Isn't it jolly, papa, to keep up these old customs? It's like Dickens, isn't it, I mean, what?' That will throw a chill over the whole meal-time - I mean orgy. You owe a duty to your family at Christmas..."

Interesting amendment

The obituary of Baroness Elles (Diana Newcombe) that appeared in the Daily Telegraph (29 October 2009) stated that as a girl she never met her father's friend T. E. Lawrence because "when he visited she was kept in the nursery, since 'Lawrence didn't like little girls'." The online version was hastily amended following intervention from a family member and the sentence deleted. According to Baroness Elles' unfinished memoir of her father it appears that the truth was quite different and that she did in fact meet Lawrence on several occasions. The last of these, for instance, was in 1935 when at the age of 13 she took him to the Science Museum in London and made plans to visit him at Clouds Hill, Lawrence's Dorset cottage. She expressed regret that she was never able to make the agreed visit, as Lawrence died shortly afterwards in a motorcycle crash.

Ashmolean Museum re-opens

T.E. Lawrence's Arab robes have gone back on display at the refurbished Ashmolean Museum in Oxford after a major rebuild had partially closed the building for some years. The robes had languished in a back room close to some administration offices, kept out of sight for many years to the public and only revealed by private request. For me, this was a special treat on my rare visits to the town. The visitor was taken by a curator to areas not open to the public and then left in front of a glass display cabinet while, if I remember correctly, electric shutters were drawn slowly back to reveal the robes draped on a small mannequin. That one moment of theatre made the visit, and the robes, extra special. Now the museum will be able to display the robes in climate-controlled conditions without fear of damage. The Times reported the textile curator, Ruth Barnes, as saying: “You can just make out the gold and silver threading. Just imagine the light on that in the sunshine. It would have looked fantastic to the people he was trying to win over.”

Arab robe worn by Lawrence,
1917-18

Stewart Newcombe also wore Arab robes while in the field, as did other members of the British Military Mission to the Hejaz to varying degrees. His were invariably stained and dirty from his prodigious efforts to destroy the Hejaz Railway. Most photos of Newcombe in the desert show a good few inches of sock disappearing into a pair of scruffy suede army brogues, as he was obviously unable to obtain robes for his height. Lawrence, who was given a set of robes by Sherif Feisal, wore his so that he could move easily among the tribes as a representative of Feisal and to allay suspicion. As he wrote: 'Because of my khaki they took me for a Turk-trained officer who had deserted to them, and were profuse in good-humoured but ghastly suggestions of how they should treat me.' Lawrence always tried to wear the best for political motives, both local and international. A fine example of these will be on display from the 7th November when the museum re-opens its doors.

For further information and to plan a visit go to www.ashmolean.org