Head in the Clouds

Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia

The cake trolley which carried Lawrence’s coffin to the church

Clouds Hill, Dorset

Michael Fassbender’s android ‘David’ in Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus models himself after Peter O'Toole’s portrayal of T.E. Lawrence in the classic film Lawrence of Arabia, which he watches on repeat. Peter O’Toole died late last year, aged 81, and his depiction of Lawrence remains O’Toole’s finest four hours of celluloid.

Soldier, writer and scholar, Thomas Edward Lawrence himself remains a curious and enigmatic character. At the height of his success, power and popularity he chose to hide himself away in a small, isolated, stark and humble cottage called Clouds Hill (pictured above), in Dorset. For Lawrence it was an “early paradise”. It was here he wrote parts of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Lawrence died in 1935 aged 46 in a motorcycle accident* and was buried nearby in the village of Moreton. The old school building is now a nice cafe called Moreton tearooms. The cake trolley, above, we were told, was the very same one which carried Lawrence’s coffin to the church.

*I’m suddenly, randomly, reminded of the later life and death of Nico, who also turned her back on fortune and fame, living a frugal life in the north of England, and dying falling off her bicycle in Ibiza. I don’t know, there’s something unjust about surviving years of war/torture/drug abuse, then dying of something so ordinary as falling off a bike.

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