Lawrence: After Arabia

By Ingrid Grupping

The novelisation of the film Lawrence: After Arabia tells the story of the last year of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) life. He is involved in a fatal motorcycle. Was it a tragic accident or was he silenced by the British Secret Service? Accident or assassination? You decide…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781446691809

Book preview

Author's Note

W

hen I was first given the opportunity to write the novelisation to the movie ‘Lawrence: After Arabia’, I wasn’t sure. The words of my language teacher, uttered in 1971 after I had given him a collection of poems and short stories which I had written at age 13 for him to look at, suddenly rang in my ear. Not good enough, you’ll never make it as a writer, or words to that effect. The fact that his life ended by his own hand a few months later didn’t make any difference, the damage had already been done. Any fledgling dreams of becoming an author I had harboured at that tender age, were well and truly squashed. However, I wasn’t given much of a choice in the writing of this book and, in the end, it was easier to give in and give it a go.

Constrained by the existing storyline of the script, the actual characters and the factual events contained within the story, I didn’t have free reign to let my imagination run wild. I also didn’t have the time to carry out in-depth research into the background and lives lived of the main characters.

I have tried to stick to facts where possible and have made up the rest to try and make the story a bit more interesting to read. My apologies to any living relatives or friends of the people portrayed in this book if events have not been represented accurately – it is meant to be fiction, based on facts. The fictional characters in the story were fun to make up, and I hope that their imagined backgrounds have brought them to life.

Grateful thanks go to my husband, not only for writing the screenplay which led  me to discover the real T.E. Lawrence behind the character portrayed by Peter O’Toole in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ many years ago, but also for his persistence and determination that I should be the one writing this book.

I could not, and probably would not, have done it without him.

My thanks also go to our immediate family who have been very supportive throughout this project, to Jan Lawrence for making sure this book would be okay to send out into the wider world, as well as my friends – you know who you are.

And, of course, huge thanks to the many other people who have published Lawrence’s writings online, researched and written their own books and articles, which have all been freely available on the Internet and have been invaluable when I wanted to quickly check something. It’s been an interesting journey!

To paraphrase Lawrence’s words: With open eyes I acted my dream, to make it possible. Writing a book, this I did.

Ingrid T.F. Grupping

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars.

To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me, when I came.

Death seemed my servant on the road, till we were near and saw you waiting.

When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me and took you apart.

Into his quietness...

T.E. Lawrence, 1922

Prologue

S

pecks of dust danced on beams of sunlight streaming through the leaded windows of the ancient church.  Alan Talbot stood and looked at the aerial display for a while, watching as the motes rose and fell like little lost souls, then pulled out the soft red cloth he carried in his pocket and continued gently dusting the effigy of one of Dorset’s most famous inhabitants.

The sun was very welcome after the weeks of bad weather they’d had recently.  Cold and damp didn’t do much for the ache in his old bones, and spending so much time in this church certainly didn’t help when the weather was bad.  Still, he loved being the curator of this peaceful place. It gave him a chance to spend some quiet time in reflection.

Sometimes tourists would come in and he would tell them what he could about the history of the Anglo-Saxon 1000-year old church.  Thanks to the Internet more and more tourists found their way there in recent years, mainly to admire the effigy carved in Portland stone he was now lovingly dusting, with its Arabian Agal and Kyffieh headdress, camel whips, and a dagger given by Prince Faisal, to reflect how people mainly remembered the man memorialised underneath his hands.

Dusting the carved figure underneath his hands made him remember the time he and his wife had gone to Morocco on their honeymoon, all those years ago. Beryl’s mum had wanted them to go to Weston-Super-Mare but he had refused. He’d saved up enough money to treat his new wife to somewhere special, and he had wanted to go to the place where his father had been stationed during WW2. He had booked a room in the El Minzah Hotel from where they undertook excursions most days. In the evening they would sample the local cuisine in different restaurants.

He could still taste his first meal in Tangier, more than 30 years ago, a dish of couscous which had been flavoured with spices, raisins, and onions. He had never tasted anything so delicious!

One morning as they were enjoying a coffee with a traditional breakfast pastry outside the Café de Paris an unusual-looking Arab had stopped near where they were sitting and for some unknown reason had stood and stared at Beryl for a moment. He vividly remembered that morning as the man had looked different from the other Arabs, with his blue eyes and strong nose and had quickly turned his head the other way when he realised that he had been noticed. That alone had been strange, but Alan had felt that he knew him from somewhere, that he looked familiar. Mind, the place had been full of free-spirit types, artists, hippies… It was possible that the man he had seen that morning had been someone famous who didn’t want to be recognised. Odd though, that the man had looked at Beryl like that.

He had loved Tangier, the spices in the markets, mint tea in the  cafés, carpenters’ sawdust on the streets and the smells of wood-fuelled cooking fires and baking bread. The salty smell of the sea and the pine-scented air – he had vowed they would go back again one day, but that had sadly not been possible.

The creaking of the hinges of the church door as it slowly opened, interrupted Alan’s musings and he turned around, expecting to find another group of eager tourists. Instead, a young boy, no older than 10 or 11 years, stood in the doorway, looking around him in awe. 

Mark, a gangly wide-eyed boy was excited at everything life had to offer. He walked down the high street towards the little church, set on what remained of the town’s Saxon fortification. He loved coming to Wareham for the summer holidays. 

He had been coming here for as long as he could remember, visiting his granny and granddad. It was so much better spending the summer down in Dorset rather than staying in Wolverhampton in the crowded house he lived in with his large family.

Not that he had any choice in the matter; his father sent him down to his gran every summer. He didn’t mind, of course, being able to spend his days exploring the heath behind his gran’s bungalow, helping his granddad and uncle, and learning to sail in a mirror dinghy at Studland Bay was a real treat! He loved spending time with his gran and grandad; they had so many stories to tell. He wished he could stay there forever.

This morning they had gone into Wareham to go to the shops. Noticing Mark was getting a bit bored while she was doing her shopping, his gran had suggested he go to the ancient church and have a look around.  He’d never been inside but had always been intrigued by the old building. He crossed the road dodging the tourists racing to get to the beaches of Purbeck or grab a cream tea at Corfe Castle, and stood outside a great oak door and turned the worn iron handle.

The sound of traffic faded in the distance as the door closed behind him.  The eyes behind his glasses opened wide in wonder as he took in the 12th-Century frescoes of St Martin on Horseback on one of the walls. He looked away from the friezes he’d been admiring and walked over to where an old man stood dusting what looked like a stone coffin.

Pausing his dusting Alan looked up at the boy. Hello young man! Welcome to St Martin’s on the Wall!

"Hello! My gran said I could come in and have a look while she’s