The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon c.1901
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
George Calderon, 1912
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Captain of the 11
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920Recent Comments
- John Pym on Two anniversaries We are all, followers and occasional contributors, beholden to you, Patrick, for reminding us for ten years that the past is worth remembering and for keeping alive the... (August 17, 2024 at 1:06 pm)
- Patrick Miles on A second Family Bible Very many thanks for fleshing that point out -- and so entertainingly! (I love your reference to creative writing courses, which are a phobia of mine.) Although several... (August 2, 2024 at 11:03 am)
- Laurence Brockliss on A second Family Bible When I say that the British Republic of Letters was dead by 1880, I don't mean to imply that thereafter there were no men and women outside universities, institutes and... (August 2, 2024 at 9:19 am)
- Patrick Miles on A second Family Bible Thank you for devoting valuable time to writing this fascinating Comment. If I may say so, it is awe-inspiring to see the author of a monumental work standing back from that... (July 31, 2024 at 5:32 pm)
- Laurence Brockliss on A second Family Bible Male Professionals in Nineteenth Century Britain was a new departure for me. For most of my adult life I have worked on seventeenth and eighteenth century France. It is also... (July 24, 2024 at 11:31 am)
Category Archives: Personal commentary
Christmas in Moscow, 1969
Leningrad, … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged ballet, biographies, biography, Bolshoi Theatre, British Embassy, Brussels sprouts, caviar, Christmas, Christmas Day, comments, coq au vin, George Calderon, Gorki Park, hoarfrost, Leningrad, Maya Plisetskaya, Moscow, Moscow University, Odette, Patrick Miles, prima ballerina assoluta, rime, Russia, skating, Swan Lake
1 Comment
Mending into…
In my mind’s eye, I can see George Calderon opening this book and chuckling with delight — not just because it was written (and gorgeously illustrated) by a great-granddaughter of his close friend ‘Evey’ Pym, but because it exemplifies something … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged anatomy, Bill Smith, biographies, Celia Pym, chaotic systems, Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Elizabeth Pym, Evey Pym, evil eye, Fair Isle, George Calderon, Hope Pym, Jim Ivory, Judy Auerbach, jumpers, Kazimir Malevich, knitting, Lara Veitch, Lolu Oluwole-Ojo, mending, Monte Carlo Opera House, moth infestations, murmurations, Piet Mondrian, Pseuds Corner, pullovers, Roland Pym, silk, snowflakes, Suprematism, sweaters, teazles, Treasures from a Ragpile, Victoria & Albert Museum, Vivien Leigh, Women's Home Industries, Wool
1 Comment
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 19
4 November On its back page, the voluminous weekly DIE ZEIT, which I still think is the best newspaper in Europe, always carries a large photograph of an animal looking at the camera with a distinctive expression, and the caption … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Adolf Hitler, Alexander Korotko, China, choughs, chrysanthemums, comments, Die Zeit, Edward Lear, emeritus professors, Georg Trakl, haiku, images, Iona, Islay, Kherson, malt whisky, Mexico, Osip Mandel'shtam, peace conferences, professors, Russo-Ukrainian War, soap, soapstone, Sudetenland, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, war poems, war poetry, whiskies, Winston Churchill
3 Comments
Was there an ‘Edwardian Age’, and was it ‘great’?
When I began to read George and Kittie Calderon’s archive for my biography of them both, I little thought I would be drawn deeper and deeper into the question of ‘Edwardianism’. Yet I instantly felt as I read George’s letters … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Adrian Gregory, Alison Miles, Bertrand Russell, Carolean Age, Charles III, chauvinism, comments, culturonomics, D.H. Lawrence, Damian Grant, Dardanelles, Diana Princess of Wales, Edward VII, Edwardianism, Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, Ephraim Parker Oakes, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George VI, Georgian Age, H.G. Wells, Henry James, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Brockliss, Maria Page, Mesopotamia, New Elizabethan Age, Oliver Moody, Peter Brent, PTSD, Queen Victoria, Robert Baden-Powell, The Great War, Tony Blair, Trinity College Oxford, William Page, World War I, Ypres
2 Comments
Guest post by John Pym: Games Ancient and Modern
An eight-minute video, La Roue, No. 29, in the series ‘Children’s Games’ by the artist Francis Alÿs: A barefoot boy in a green and yellow football shirt and red shorts – the colours of the Congo national football team – … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Children's Games', A Room with a View, bicycles, Brasted, Brigadier-General Sir John Gough V.C., bumble puppy, card games, Carol Taylor, croquet, E.M. Forster, Etoile copper mine, Evey Pym, Foxwold, Francis Alÿs, Frank Calderon, games, George Calderon, golf, gun cabinet, guns, horses, Hoyle's Rules, Jack Pym, James Ivory, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, La Roue, Lubumbashi, Mahjong, Mampala, Merchant Ivory Productions, Mia Fothergill, Minnie Beebe, play, riding, Roland Pym, Roya Lubbock, Ruth Jhabvala, shooting, Simon Callow, Sir Edmund Backhouse, The Congo, The Great War, The Sacred Lake, tricycle, Up Jenkins, Venice Biennale, Violet Pym, Windy Corner, World War I
1 Comment
Mayakovsky’s pancake
It may seem surprising that I can bring myself to say anything positive about Russians at a time when their country has become, to quote Joseph Conrad again, ‘the negation of everything worth living for’. But, of course, these four … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Aleksei Suvorin, Alfred Dreyfus, anecdotes, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, biographies, comments, Dreyfus Affair, Lev Trotsky, literary anecdotes, Literature and Revolution, love, love at first sight, Mikhail Pavlovich Chekhov, Narkom, pancakes, parallel lines, People's Commissar, proverbs, Shrove Tuesday, Shrovetide, steppe, Vladimir Mayakovsky
Leave a comment
Guest post by Alison Miles: Edwardian grandmothers?
Both my grandmothers were children during the reign of Edward VII. My paternal grandmother Dorothy Mabel Angus (Granny Thomas) was born on 2 December 1897 and my maternal grandmother Eleanor Frances Ashton (Granny Goodfield) on 7 April 1898. Granny Thomas … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Africa, Arras, Arts and Crafts, Ashton Family, Battle of Arras, British Empire, Cardiff, Cardiff University, class system, comments, David Ashotn, Dorothy Mabel Angus, education, Edwardian furnishings, Edwardian furniture, Edwardian homes, Edwardian period, Eleanor Frances Ashton, family photographs, Franz Schubert, grandparents, housework, India, John Mortimer Angus, Ludwig van Beethoven, meningitis, missionaries, music-making, nannies, Norman Angus, Received Pronunciation, servants, snobbery, social mobility, social status, souvenirs, The Great War, Thomas Family, Victorian period, World War I
Leave a comment
‘Chekhov’s Gun’ (Concluded)
In this concluding video on the subject of Chekhov’s Gun, I give a thumbnail sketch of its application in his own plays from Ivanov (1887) to The Cherry Orchard (1904). Since the phrase is so popular (yes, really, I have … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, bee-brooch, biographies, biography, breaking string, chaos theory, Chekhov's Gun, Chekhovian, comments, commercial theatre, contingency, cucumber, fortuitousness, galoshes, Ivanov, MacGuffin, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Wood Demon, Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya
1 Comment
The Isle of Wight Entente of 1909
If there is one book that I wish I had been able to read when I was researching my biography of George Calderon, it is the one above, published last year. A quarter of it (pp. 231-336) deals with the … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alfred Wareing, Alix of Hesse, Anglo-British relations, Anton Chekhov, Arthur Hendesron, biographies, Britain and the Isle of Wight, Cheka, comments, Deptford, Edward VII, Ekaterinburg, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, H.H. Asquith, holiday reading, Isle and Empires: Romanov Russia, Isle of Wight, Nicholas II, Osborne House, Peter the Great, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Romania, Russo-British relations, Sir Edward Grey, Spithead, Stephan Roman, stratsoterptsy, The Great War, The Seagull, Triple Entente, William Gerhardie, World War I
Leave a comment
Guest post by Damian Grant: ‘Radio Scotland’
We live in France. In Lille, where the language is French. About a year ago — not knowing anything about the animal — I bought a HomePod online. I had thought it was just a superior (and very stylish) kind … Continue reading →