the times | Friday March 6 2020 2GM 3
News
For decades it had gathered dust under
a bed in Cheltenham. Now the discov-
ery of a postcard written a century ago
by DH Lawrence has “reawakened” his
romance with a fiancée.
Featuring a Bleriot plane on the front
and the occasional grammatical error
on the back, it was written by the poet
and author of Lady Chatterley’s Lover in
1910 before he became engaged to
Louisa “Louie” Burrows, a woman who
he said “warmed his heart like a sunny
day” and was as “strong and rosy as the
gates of Eden”.
The engagement ended two years
later but the postcard has been redis-
covered after being kept for decades
under the bed of Burrows’s great-niece.
Experts said the discovery of the post-
card by one of England’s most influen-
tial literary figures, had “reawakened
their wonderful love story”.
The postcard is to be auctioned next
month after it was rediscovered by Ros
Connolly. It was given to Mrs Connolly,
70, by her grandmother Constance
Slee, Burrows’s sister, when she was five
years old. “I started collecting postcards
when I was four or five as I thought they
were pretty,” Mrs Connolly said.
“I didn’t realise the importance of
Aunt Louie’s postcard. I’ve always kept
my postcard collection in my bedroom,
often under the bed. I came across it
when I was downsizing and decided to
sell it as tribute to my great-aunt.
“Louie and my uncle Fred Heath,
who she married in later life, were love-gowns worn by others staying at the
guesthouse on Talbot Road in Black-
pool whom he had tried to avoid.
The piece of literary memorabilia
will be sold by Hansons Auctioneers on
April 2 with a guide price of £300-£
but is expected to fetch much more
after another postcard by the poet
which was found after it was about to be
thrown in a skip in Newark, Notting-
hamshire, sold for £1,500 last August.
Louisa Burrows met Lawrence at
Ilkeston’s Pupil-Teacher Centre in Der-
byshire. However, in 1912 Lawrence
eloped with Frieda Weekley. Burrows
met Fred Heath in 1940 and they en-
joyed a happy marriage until she died
aged 74 in 1962, but she never forgot
Lawrence, who died in 1930, and visited
his grave at Vence, France, twice.Neil Johnston Midlands Correspondent
rior work, by a local Egyptian firm, that
was not resolved until 2018.
The main danger, however, was the
interior, where holes had appeared in
the roof of the burial chamber. Engi-
neers used a form of airbag to protect
the walls and ceilings as they drove in
steel anchors.
“We couldn’t use drills because it
might have shifted the stone and col-
lapsed it all around us,” Mr James said.Armies of workers, perhaps not dissimi-
lar to those who built it, moved blocks
into place with ramps and pulleys.
Egypt’s prime minister, Mostafa
Madbouly, who attended the unveiling,
said the pyramid was now in a condi-
tion that fitted its status. “Although of
course we are very proud that this is an
Egyptian legacy, we also know very
well it is world and global heritage that
we are very keen to maintain,” he said.An engineer from
Wales defied the odds
on a 14-year mission,
Magdy Samaan and
Richard Spencer write
DH Lawrence’s postcard to his lover is found under bed
dard archaeological view. His next
project in Egypt will be the “Bent Pyra-
mid” — the first smooth-sided pyramid,
whose unsuccessful original construc-
tion gave it the distinctive shape.
The Step Pyramid was built by Imho-
tep, who was hired by Djoser to build his
resting place. The chamber at its heart
where he lay is almost 100ft under-
ground. The pharaoh’s sarcophagus is
still in place. The mummy, and anyother contents, have never been
found, except for a piece of wood that
some previous restoration used as a
ceiling beam. On the other side, Mr
James said, were hieroglyphs from the
Book of the Dead, the ancient Egyptian
guide to ritual. The construction con-
tains more than 11 million cubic feet of
stone and is 203ft high.
Restoration was delayed by a dispute
over the historical accuracy of the exte-Preventing the world’s oldest remain-
ing building from collapsing might be a
nerve-racking task at the best of times.
Yet standing inside its deepest chamber,
with half a million tonnes of stone
crumbling above you, was another
thing entirely.
Peter James, an engineer from south
Wales, looked at the pile of rubble that
had already dropped from the ceiling,
and the broken beams that were all that
prevented the rest of the structure col-
lapsing on his head. “It really was ex-
tremely, extremely, dangerous,” he re-
called yesterday.
A decade later Mr James, and col-
leagues from his Newport firm Cintec,
as well as Egypt’s leading experts, were
finally able to celebrate the completion
of one of the most complex pieces of re-
construction in modern Egyptian his-
tory: the rescue of the Step Pyramid of
Djoser.
The reopening of the 4,650-year-old
pyramid, at Sakkara, south of Cairo,
was marked with a brief ceremonial un-
veiling attended by Khaled al-Anany,
Egypt’s minister of tourism. The 14-
year project has been blighted by near-
disaster, not least the revolution of 2011
which brought work to a standstill for
two years.
Visitors will now be able to venture
into King Djoser’s burial chamber for
the first time since the 1930s, since
when it has been deemed too much of
a risk to step inside, even for archaeol-
ogists.
The pyramid is regarded as the
prototype for all of Egypt’s others,
including the famous three that stand
beside the Sphinx at Giza 12 miles to
the northwest. It is also the world’s
oldest surviving intact stone struc-
ture.
Some of the damage was caused by
age and some by an earthquake in 1992,
which fortuitously gave Cintec its role
in the reconstruction. A company that
specialises in shoring up old buildings,
it was working on the rebuilding of
Windsor Castle when a Unesco con-
sultant recommended it to the Egyp-
tian authorities to survey the damage.
Mr James has since become an ex-
pert on the building of the pyramids,
writing a book that challenges the stan-
Peter James said
the work had been
highly dangerousTourists can step inside the building for the first time since the 1930s. The
project has restored tunnels and engravings in the 4,650-year-old buildingTombRoof of central
chamber had
collapsed on
to tombCentral
chamberHow it works
112Steel rod inside a
fabric sock is inserted
into hole made in roof
Mortar is pumped into space between
rod and sock. The mortar forces the
sock into voids and secures stones2MOHAMED EL-SHAHED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; MOHAMED ABD EL GHANY/REUTERSHow Briton at the sharp end
saved Egypt’s oldest pyramid
d d rchaeological view.His nextttt ot
dbyT
ply people. I stayed
with them when I
was eight and
they were so kind
to me.”
She added: “I
knew Louie al-
ways had a place
in her heart for DH Lawrence — and he
loved her. He liked her intellect. I would
like their love story to be remembered.
It’s a magical piece of family history.”The postcard is addressed to “Miss
Louie Burrows, 72 Moorlands Rd,
North Bay, Scarborough”. It has no
stamp or visible date but reads: “Thank
you for letter — I’ll
try to see you one
day — possibly
Monday week. We
having a veritable
red & yellow time
here — gaudy’s not
the word. Saw Nina- Mary’s lovely.
DHL.”
The DH Lawrence
Research Centre
said that the card was
written in August 1910. The reference to
yellow and red was explained in a mem-
oir and related to the colour of dressing
The writer’s card
to Louie Burrows is
being auctioned