AN 'UNREQUITED LOVE' POEM

  One day in the late 1960s or early 1970s I picked up from off a pavement in Weymouth a piece of paper with writing on it. With feint lines it looked to have come from a small writing pad. It contained the following untitled, unsigned poignant poem, obviously written by a young hand, in extremely neat writing. It was found along a route travelled by pedestrian teenage students from a nearby Technical College. Whether it was written by a boy or girl is difficult to say, though I am inclined to the latter. Was it dropped by the writer or recipient? It was a seemingly inadvertent action for the paper had just one fold, and was not screwed up as it might have been if being thrown away. What happened to either of them?
  Although not a masterpiece, though with some clever rhyming, it nevertheless touched me such that I could not in turn dispose of it. After all this time I am taking the liberty of publishing the poem in case by chance the writer recognises it, and may wish to have it returned.

I told this heart of mine
Our love could never be;
And then I hear your voice,
And something stirs inside of me.
Somehow I cant dismiss
The memory of your kiss.
Yes, my heart has a mind of its own,
No matter what I do.
No matter what I say,
No matter how I try,
I just cant turn the other way.
When I'm with someone new,
I always think of you.
Yes my heart has a mind of its own.
Your not in love with me,
So why cant I forget
I'm just your used to be.
Its wrong, and yet
I know forgetting you
Would be a hopeless thing,
For I'm a puppet
and I just cant seem to break the string.
I say I'll let you go,
And then my heart say's "No".
Yes my heart has a mind of it's own.

FAREWELL 'ELSA'. R.I.P.

Visitors to Moreton cemetery over the past several years may well have met the friendly resident tortoiseshell cat, who was to be named 'Elsa'. She was semi-feral, and said to be aged 16 at her recent death. From personal experience she seemed to have taken on the mantle of the Lawrence grave's custodian, for she was inclined to instinctively lead one directly to it. Whilst one was then contemplating the grave, Elsa might perch herself on the nearby Arthur Russell's 'PATROCLUS' bench. There are a couple of photographs of her in the latest Winter 2010 T.E.LAWENCE SOCIETY NEWSLETTER. 

MORETON CEMETERY LYCH-GATE

DORSET LIFE, a monthly Dorset county magazine, in its April 2010 edition contained a short article headed "Lych-gate roof restoration call". After a series of lead thefts, Moreton parochial church council  decided it wanted to replace the lead on the cemetery's lych-gate roof with slate. But as the structure is a 200-year-old listed building it needs planning permission from Purbeck District Council. The architects have been in negotiations with English Heritage for "quite a long time", but are now hopeful permission will be obtained for this change of material.

IMAGES OF T.E.LAWRENCE'S PARENTS

Considering that photography was invented c.1840, there are very few known photographs of T.E.Lawrence's parents: (Sir) Thomas Robert Tighe Chapman (1846-1919) and Sarah Lawrence (nee Junner, 1861-1959). Thomas Chapman was something of a photographer, and more or less taught his son Thomas Edward Lawrence all he knew.
But at the National Portrait Gallery's "T.E.Lawrence Exhibition" in December 1988, visitors were introduced to a number of images of the pair. There was just the one photographic image of Thomas senior, taken it is believed c.1864 whilst he was attending Eton College. In private hands it is seemingly still the only one so far known, and unfortunately was not reproduced in the Exhibition Catalogue. It had, however, apparently been already first published in Plymouth's Evening Herald of 17th August 1988, and then again in Ireland on Sunday of 14th April 2002. This latter publication also contained photographs of elderly Sarah Lawrence and Edith Chapman (Thomas Chapman's wife). Although Thomas Chapman's photograph is to a certain extent now in the public domain, for copyright reasons it is not possible to publish here.
With Sarah Lawrence, we are luckier. At the above Exhibition, and in the Catalogue, there was a photograph from the Bodleian Library of her with her four elder sons (including TEL aged 5 years) standing in the doorway of Langley Lodge, Hampshire. Then there was a later head-and-shoulders one of Sarah c.1910 from a private collection. The colour portrait of her dated c.1936 from the artist's family, also appeared in black and white in the Ireland on Sunday. The Exhibition and Catalogue finally contained a black and white photograph of Sarah c.1940 (in private hands), when she would be aged about 80.
Finally, there is another oft-published one of her in old age, taken with her eldest son Robert, at the doorway of their house in Swanage, Dorset, taken not long after their return from China in 1935 following TEL's tragic death.
The writer would be interested in learning of any other images of TEL's parents.

T. E. LAWRENCE COMMEMORATION 2010

At 2 p.m. on the afternoon of Saturday, 22nd May 2010, there will be a Commemoration Service in memory of T. E. Lawrence at Moreton church, Dorset. It will have been 75 years since Lawrence's tragic death, and the 25th anniversary of the formation of the T.E.Lawrence Society. The Service will include "elements from the original order of service."
Following this Service, the T.E.Lawrence Society will pay a floral tribute at Lawrence's graveside in the nearby Moreton cemetery, and when I have been invited to give an appropriate tribute.
The photograph below was taken on a similar graveside occasion in 1988.

(Acknowledgements for photograph to Bob Richardson, Wareham)