K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George Calderon, 1912
Captain of the 11
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George Calderon c.1901Recent 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)
Monthly Archives: October 2014
30 October 1914
Percy Lubbock says that Calderon was writing today from ‘a casualty clearing station’, but George himself calls it ‘the hospital’. Whichever it was, it presumably had X-ray facilities, because in the X-ray below the damage looks sufficiently fresh for the … Continue reading
29 October 1914: ‘toothache in the ankle’
The German bombardment began at 5.30 a.m. and was concentrated on the Gheluvelt crossroads on the Menin Road (see map below). Falkenhayn’s plan was that having pushed the salient further in here, on 30th a general attack would be unleashed … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Army Group Fabeck, Belgium, Erich von Falkenhayn, General Fabeck, George Calderon, Gheluvelt Crossroads, Hollebeke, Ian F.W. Beckett, Kittie Calderon, Klein Zillebeke, Major-General Thompson Capper, map, Menin Road, Messines, military interpreters, Percy Lubbock, Royal Horse Guards, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zandvoorde
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28 October 1914
George wrote his long letter to Kittie today at supper time. There had been two developments during the day that directly led to attaining his object of becoming combatant, but he left them until the end of his letter. During … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure
Tagged Belgium, Colonel Gordon Wilson, Dixmude, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Nieuport, Royal Horse Guards, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Surgeon Major Pares, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Yser
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‘Stellenbosched’
For those who know only of Stellenbosch’s fine wines or distinguished university, I should explain that after the Second Boer War the British Army turned it into a verb meaning to park someone military in a job where their incompetence … Continue reading
26 October 1914
Calderon found Brigadier-General ‘Black Jack’ Kavanagh last night about three miles from the front and presented his letter of recommendation from Kavanagh’s brigade major in Dunkirk. This afternoon he told Kittie the result: It is not certain that General K. … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Belgium, Brigadier-General Charles Kavanagh, comments, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Kruiseecke, Menin Road, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, Sir John French, Sir Richard Sutton, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres
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25 October 1914
George wrote to Kittie this morning from his billet at, presumably, Nieuwkerke: off this morning on motor trucks with the bully beef. I shall find Gen. Kavanagh tonight. I hope he’ll accept me. Perhaps I shall find the place taken … Continue reading
Another ‘Russian connection’
It is also surprising that in his letter of yesterday Calderon did not mention Captain Fitzgerald, with whom he had shared a hotel room at Ypres. This ‘full-blooded Irishman, black and hairy’ had, we presume, accompanied George to Dunkirk with … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alexis Gunzberg, Ballets Russes, Belgium, Bernard Pares, Captain Fitzgerald, Colonel Gordon Wilson, Diaghilev, Dmitri de Gunzberg, Dunkirk, George Calderon, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, School of Russian Studies, Steenwerck, The Blues, The Great War, World War I
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23 October 1914
Today George wrote to Kittie from Dunkirk. It was his first letter to her for six days. ‘Dearest Mrs P.,’ he began, ‘I haven’t written, because there was nothing very gay to say.’ (See my posts of 29 August, 1 … Continue reading
Kittie
Most unusually, Kittie Calderon appears not to have gone to stay with friends at all since George embarked for Belgium on 6 October. We know this because the envelopes of George’s letters show that her housekeeper, Elizabeth Ellis, did not … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Acton Reynald, Antwerp, Belgium, Brinsop Court, British Expeditionary Force, Constance Sutton, Coote Hedley, Dixmude, Foxwold, John Masefield, Kittie Calderon, Mons, Nieuport, Nina Astley, Royal Horse Guards, Sturge Moore, The Blues, The Great War, VAD, World War I, Ypres, Yser
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21 October 1914
At four o’clock this morning the hospital train arrived in Dunkirk. George could not name the town in his letter to Kittie of 23 October, but we know from his letter of 15th that this was his destination. He heads … Continue reading
20 October 1914: Hell breaks loose
This morning the Germans began an offensive along the whole northwestern front from La Bassée in France to the Belgian coast. The German 4th Army was closing in on Ypres from the north and east, the 6th Army from the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Belgium, British Expeditionary Force, General Douglas Haig, General Edmund Allenby, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, La Bassée, Messines, Passchendaele, Royal Horse Guards, Sir Richard Sutton, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zandvoorde
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The TLS link
At four o’clock this afternoon, Monday 19 October 1914, George and other patients set off on a very slow train to their ‘Hospital base’ at Dunkirk. It may seem odd that he had told Kittie to contact Theodore Cook, editor … Continue reading
‘Rich gift of anger’ is roused
Calderon awoke this morning, Saturday 17 October 1914, ‘in a large comfortable double-bedded room, looking through tall windows into a big town square.’ He had breakfast in bed and ‘stayed there till eleven’. This afternoon he wrote to Kittie from … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature
Tagged Belgium, Bruce Richmond, Captain Fitzgerald, Dr Albert Tebb, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Field, The Great War, Theodore Cook, Times Literary Supplement, World War I, Ypres
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Nuns fall for the Calderonian charm
The motor lorries arrived at 3 in the morning. Sick and wounded were put in; a pleurisy case; a man from our Brigade with rheumatic fever from our so-called ‘billets’. He had been lying two days in an ambulance wagon … Continue reading
Complex, yes
Today, Saturday 31 October 1914, George Calderon was presumably travelling in a hospital train to one of the Channel ports. The day is a black hole in his biography, but as Kittie remembered it he arrived in London on 1 … Continue reading →