I make no apology for another post that begins with an episode from the life of Siegfried Sassoon's beloved and extraordinary friend, T E Lawrence, "Eternal T.E." as Sassoon christened him in a poem written after Lawrence's death. Lawrence remains a legendary figure, and the more one learns about him, the most astonished one is.
After the war and the failure of his diplomatic efforts to procure a satisfactory outcome to the troubles of the Middle East, exacerbated as they were by British and French imperial ambitions, Lawrence saw nothing for it but to retreat from the world, and his method of doing so was not something most people would even have considered. His career as a guerrilla fighter, living the daily life of a Bedouin with its attendant disadvantages and flirting with danger at every opportunity, show that he was not afraid of physical discomfort; indeed, he seems to have relished it. Nevertheless, he was unprepared for life as a newly-recruited serviceman in the RAF.
Lawrence chose this path hoping for anonymity, but used the pretext of wanting to write a book about the RAF to convince senior commanders of the desirability of allowing him to enter the service, physically unfit and temperamentally unsuited as he was (not to mention too old to join up). It is remarkable that they went along with his plan, and hardly surprising that he was found out within the year. Had things gone differently, however, he might never have made it past the recruiting sergeant.
The sergeant whom Lawrence approached at the office in Henrietta Street, London, in August 1922, knew nothing of his true identity, and immediately recognised the scruffy, undersized individual as unsuitable. He referred the matter to a senior officer, one Flying Officer W E Johns, who shared his view that the man presenting himself as "Ross" was an undesirable and showed him the door. The two officers remained concerned that Ross might be a fugitive from the police. When, later, he returned with official documents to support his application, Johns was forced to accept him, but he was unimpressed with the subterfuge and never warmed to Lawrence.
William Earl Johns, five years Lawrence's junior, had served throughout the war. In 1917 he had joined the Royal Flying Corps and trained as a fighter pilot. Despite several hair-raising adventures with planes, he was no ace, and late in 1918 was captured by the Germans and spent the last two months of the year as a prisoner of war. He continued in the RAF until 1931, when he began working as a journalist. He later founded a magazine called Popular Flying, and it was in this publication that perhaps the most famous fictional pilot of all time, Biggles, first appeared.
Johns soon began to use the name "Captain W. E. Johns" for publishing his Biggles stories, and by the time he died in 1968 he had written nearly a hundred Biggles books, in addition to numerous other books, novels, serials and plays on other topics. During the Second World War, at the request of the War Office, he even created a female character, "Worrals", for propaganda purposes.
It will not surprise you to learn that there are two societies, the W E Johns Appreciation Society and "Biggles & Co", in existence, reflecting the popularity of Johns' writing. One great fan of Biggles is SSF founder member, Phil Carradice, who has spoken several times about how Johns inspired him to begin writing. To date Phil has published over 60 books, but I somehow doubt he will ever outdo the publishing record of his literary hero.
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