Garden pursuits

The woman hired by the National Trust to see that nothing is pilfered from the upper floor at Clouds Hill, and to answer the visitors’ questions, knew almost nothing, she told me, about Colonel T.E. Lawrence, whose house it was from 1923 until he died as a result of a motorbike accident in May 1935. She was new to the job, she said. It was only her second shift. But she’d recognised already that for many visitors Clouds Hill was a shrine, and for their sakes she was determined to become as knowledgeable about Lawrence as possible.

She and I were alone in the simply furnished room. It was more or less as Lawrence left it on the day he kick-started his Brough Superior and rode off to send a telegram to Henry Williamson inviting him to Clouds Hill to discuss Williamson’s suggestion that Lawrence become actively involved in the British Union of Fascists. There was a brown leather sofa, a writing table, a battered Royal typewriter, a wind-up gramophone with an enormous horn, and an Art Deco fender — all original.

I had a question about Lawrence, I said. She looked terrified. I wanted to find the exact spot where he came off his bike, I said. Did she know where it was? ‘Yes! I do!’ she said, her face alight with pleasure. ‘It’s a straight road, but there was a hump. After the accident my father was given the job of removing the hump to level the road. You turn right out of the gate and it’s about a mile along the road. I’d better double-check that, though.’

She went downstairs. Then she came back up looking crestfallen, followed by the man whose job it was to keep an eye on the ground floor.