One of the enduring myths down the ages is that of the undying hero. Probably the best-known modern example in Britain is that of TE Lawrence (1888-1935), popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, with its latest fictional expression being found in a new play, Blood, Gold, and Oil, by Jan Woolf. Receiving its first public reading on 28 May this year at the Tin Tabernacle, Kilburn, it imagines a phantom Lawrence returning to haunt a modern exhibition dedicated to the archæology of World War I. In the play, Lawrence reflects upon his dramatic life leading the Bedouin revolt against the Ottoman Turks between 1916 and 1918, and its troubled legacy of subsequent interventions in the Middle East. Full performances of the play are planned next year to mark the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
While I don’t think it likely those behind this play countenance any real spectral return of Lawrence, there may well be those who think otherwise. In September 2020 Saudi Arabia’s tourism ministry announced that a house at the Red Sea port of Yanbu where Lawrence briefly stayed on the eve of his famous desert campaign was being restored. This two-storey sturcture had become a ruin, amid local rumours of it being haunted by ghosts. Ahmed Al Mahtout, the mayor of Yanbu, said that by the end of the year the eerie house could be ready for tourists to visit, as part of a wider drive by the Kingdom to attract more foreign visitors. (Daily Telegraph, 3 Sept 2021)
Meanwhile back in the UK, the last earthly home of Lawrence,
