LAWRENCE: AFTER ARABIA

A new film, shot on location in Dorset, explores the final years of the enigmatic and mysterious T.E. Lawrence

- Jeremy Miles

Eighty years after his death following a motorcycle crash near his Dorset home Clouds Hill, the truth of what really happened to Lawrence of Arabia remains a mystery.

Conspiracy theories abound. Did T.E. Lawrence, the author, soldier and reluctant hero of the Arab rebellion die after his powerful Brough Superior bike swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles or was he assassinated by the British secret service?

Why did witnesses tell police that they had seen a large black car at the scene of the accident but then change their statements? What was Lawrence up to?

A new film, Lawrence: After Arabia, examines his final years, his powerful friends and dangerous enemies. Shot in Dorset with a largely local cast and crew supporting a line-up that includes Brian Cox, Michael Maloney and Hugh Fraser, the film focuses on events that led up to the fatal crash near Bovington Camp on 13 May 1935. Bournemouth actor Tom Barber Duffy takes the title role.

Maybe it will help unearth the truth. The movie has been a labour of love for writer and director Mark JT Griffin who has been fascinated by Lawrence of Arabia since childhood.

“I used to holiday every year with grandparents in Wareham. One day when I was about 10-years-old my gran went into the butchers and sent me to look around the church over the road.”

It was there in the 1,000-year-old St Martin’s on the Walls that he saw the war-artist Eric Kennington’s famous Lawrence effigy and fell into conversation with a man who was cleaning it.