Wednesday 1 April 2026

10:00

Masonic Hall

50 Years with Lawrence of Arabia – an obsession

Speaker: Stephen Spencer

After a first career as an immigration officer at various ports of entry, and having dabbled briefly with the military, he retrained as an interpreter but somehow became a teacher of modern languages.

His interests include target-rifle shooting, motorcycles, and tinkering with boats.

Like many of the recently retired he engages in a range of voluntary activities.

He has also returned to tutoring learners of all ages and finds this rewarding.

He was a Round Tabler (Great Dunmow and then Newmarket) in the 1980s.

His talks are based around his experiences and interests.

His talk is titled “FIFTY YEARS WITH LAWRENCE OF ARABIA AN OBSESSION”.

It suddenly occurred to Stephen that he had spent more years researching Lawrence than Lawrence had lived - and that it was time to go public.

His illustrated talk is his attempt to justify a lifetime of study of the enigmatic soldier-scholar sometimes referred to as the “uncrowned King of Arabia”.