Calderonia is an experiment in biography through a blog. It tells the story of George and Kittie Calderon’s lives from 30 July 1914 to 30 July 1915 from day to day as it happened, but exactly 100 years afterwards. It therefore feels like a biography in real time. When no facts were known for a particular day, the author posted on subjects ranging from the Edwardians, recently published biographies and his own problems as a biographer, to translating Chekhov and the Commemoration of World War I.
The blog-biography can be accessed in various ways. To read it from the beginning, go to the top of the column on the right and click the appropriate link. You can then read forward in time by clicking the link at the end of each post. If you wish to start at a particular month, scroll down the column on the right to Archive at the bottom. Posts can also be selected through Search Calderonia and the Tags on the right. An update on the complete biography of George Calderon always follows this introduction.
3/2/16. Today I tackle the revision of chapter one, first written, revised and wordprocessed in June 2011. I have always known it was going to be a challenge, as it starts the biography at one remove (George hardly appears in it) and the first page and a half is too philosophical, airy-fairy and drawn out… It’s a terrible beginning if you want to grab the reader and never let them go again. At the time of writing I tried to get round this by keeping it very short (3500 words), but that was fudgery… There are things in it that are important (to me) to say, e.g. about Edwardian semantics and body language, not to mention Kittie’s first husband and George’s university friend Archie Ripley, but no publisher, I fear, will want it; or the last chapter. Chekhov’s advice is ringing in my ears: ‘when you have written a story, tear off the beginning and end of it, because that’s where we writers lie most’!
A number of followers have asked me what condition Kittie was suffering from in her years at ‘White Raven’ (1934-47) and whether it was this that carried her off (30 January 1950).
The latter is the easy question. On her death certificate the causes of death are given as: 1a Hypostatic Pneumonia, b Cardiac failure, c Arteriosclerosis. However, her hypostatic pneumonia (‘Old People’s Friend’) was just the result of prolonged confinement to bed (constant fluid collection at back of lungs), ‘cardiac failure’ refers presumably to her heart winding down, and ‘arteriosclerosis’ was a long-term condition, so it seems to me these amount to saying no more than that the cause of death was ‘old age’ and they tell us nothing about her chronic health problems 1934-47.
The most obvious reason for all her correspondence suddenly breaking off in 1946 is that she had a stroke and never recovered the ability to write. But there is no independent evidence for this and she does not seem to have entirely lost her powers of speech. I don’t favour this explanation, therefore. The ‘most obvious reason’ for no letters from or to Kittie having survived after 2 January 1946 is actually that they were lost or burned after her death! Given the large number of her correspondents, it is hardly likely that they all stopped writing to her at once. (On the other hand, if she did have an incapacitating stroke all her correspondence would have been taken over by her attorney, Louise Rosales, and Mrs Rosales was definitely a ‘burner’.)
Kittie’s known symptoms after moving into White Raven were problems with (close?) vision, suddenly falling asleep, and having to keep running to the ‘bathroom’. Not a single photograph of her wearing glasses is known, but we know she had them as she refers in a diary to her ‘spex’. But the problem was not just optometric. She visited a consultant in London, who it seems told her he could do nothing for her beyond a new lense prescription. This implies that the real problem was cataracts or something like macular degeneration. Her suddenly ‘falling asleep’ could have been just a hypothermic reaction to inactivity in the grossly underheated houses she lived in. Although Kittie says in a private letter that it is her ‘middle’ that plays her up, implying the problem is gastric, her spidery failing writing and blackouts could imply chronic urinary tract infection. She thought very highly of her G.P. in Ashford, a Dr Body (!), and he tried the latest medication for her gastric/urinary condition, but it didn’t work.
We shall probably never know what Kittie clinically had wrong with her. But the really interesting thing, in my view, is that nowhere does Kittie ever say what, clinically, she has been diagnosed as having. This, I think, is very characteristic of the Edwardians and, indeed, our recent forebears. You did not name your disease/complaint, because (a) medical terminology was for doctors, (b) you weren’t supposed to discuss illness openly, (c) your job was to keep a stiff upper lip through it all.
There is a graphic illustration of Kittie’s attitude to illness in her pocket diary for 1939 — and incidentally it shows that we must add the term ‘grip’ to ‘staunch’, ‘stalwart’ and ‘stout’ in our Edwardian vocabulary. She had had a fall in September or November 1938 (she is confused about which) and been badly concussed. This had aggravated her already existing proneness to falling asleep. But she was determined to battle on, and to write about it in her diary for 10 January 1939 even though this cost her great effort and her writing and self-expression were affected:
Returning from Foxwold tomorrow [=yesterday, 9 January]. I found E. [Elizabeth Ellis?] better but not quite well. Came as far as Maidstone with E. [Elizabeth Pym?] then fetched by [illegible name] Gar. [probably ‘Garage’ at which chauffeur worked, in Kennington, Ashford]. Frightfully tired seems absurd to be so tired suppose its still after Xmas tiredness in spite of doing nothing at Foxwold and never down till lunch[.] But difficulty getting to bed till small hrs as would fall asleep in chair and wake about three – seems as if sitting down to take off my stockings is the moment that sleep gets me like a descending lid on a box and I wake about 3 to 4. Sometimes it would be a letter I had to write – I’d only get a few wds written[.] The only safe time to catch a post at Foxwold is the early morning post man. I’ve no warning of feeling ‘sleepy’ – just as I say a sudden lid shuts down. When first this used to occasionally happen Dr Carver [Mrs Stewart’s doctor in Torquay] said it was a form of Exhaustion and I must regard it as heaven sent – but since this dunt on my head on Sept. 5th it seems to be perpetually happening. Still I daresay heaven sent but difficult to deal with must try to do less somehow – but goodness knows how – I was really doing ‘nothing’ at Foxwold but yet so tired when I got to my room (not feeling tired) that apparently the lid would shut down with no warning and I went to sleep [f]or 3 or 4 hrs. […] I pray nightly for return of ‘grip’ after Prayer for Peace.
She had recovered by the beginning of March and was following political developments in Europe closely. Two months before war broke out she was able to revisit her birthplace, St Ernan’s Island Donegal, on a motoring holiday with Louise Rosales.
This is the most recent ‘Watch this Space’ post. For the archive of ‘Watch this Space’, please click here.
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Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Captain of the 11
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon, 1912
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George Calderon c.1901
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Watch this Space
Calderonia is an experiment in biography through a blog. It tells the story of George and Kittie Calderon’s lives from 30 July 1914 to 30 July 1915 from day to day as it happened, but exactly 100 years afterwards. It therefore feels like a biography in real time. When no facts were known for a particular day, the author posted on subjects ranging from the Edwardians, recently published biographies and his own problems as a biographer, to translating Chekhov and the Commemoration of World War I.
The blog-biography can be accessed in various ways. To read it from the beginning, go to the top of the column on the right and click the appropriate link. You can then read forward in time by clicking the link at the end of each post. If you wish to start at a particular month, scroll down the column on the right to Archive at the bottom. Posts can also be selected through Search Calderonia and the Tags on the right. An update on the complete biography of George Calderon always follows this introduction.
3/2/16. Today I tackle the revision of chapter one, first written, revised and wordprocessed in June 2011. I have always known it was going to be a challenge, as it starts the biography at one remove (George hardly appears in it) and the first page and a half is too philosophical, airy-fairy and drawn out… It’s a terrible beginning if you want to grab the reader and never let them go again. At the time of writing I tried to get round this by keeping it very short (3500 words), but that was fudgery… There are things in it that are important (to me) to say, e.g. about Edwardian semantics and body language, not to mention Kittie’s first husband and George’s university friend Archie Ripley, but no publisher, I fear, will want it; or the last chapter. Chekhov’s advice is ringing in my ears: ‘when you have written a story, tear off the beginning and end of it, because that’s where we writers lie most’!
A number of followers have asked me what condition Kittie was suffering from in her years at ‘White Raven’ (1934-47) and whether it was this that carried her off (30 January 1950).
The latter is the easy question. On her death certificate the causes of death are given as: 1a Hypostatic Pneumonia, b Cardiac failure, c Arteriosclerosis. However, her hypostatic pneumonia (‘Old People’s Friend’) was just the result of prolonged confinement to bed (constant fluid collection at back of lungs), ‘cardiac failure’ refers presumably to her heart winding down, and ‘arteriosclerosis’ was a long-term condition, so it seems to me these amount to saying no more than that the cause of death was ‘old age’ and they tell us nothing about her chronic health problems 1934-47.
The most obvious reason for all her correspondence suddenly breaking off in 1946 is that she had a stroke and never recovered the ability to write. But there is no independent evidence for this and she does not seem to have entirely lost her powers of speech. I don’t favour this explanation, therefore. The ‘most obvious reason’ for no letters from or to Kittie having survived after 2 January 1946 is actually that they were lost or burned after her death! Given the large number of her correspondents, it is hardly likely that they all stopped writing to her at once. (On the other hand, if she did have an incapacitating stroke all her correspondence would have been taken over by her attorney, Louise Rosales, and Mrs Rosales was definitely a ‘burner’.)
Kittie’s known symptoms after moving into White Raven were problems with (close?) vision, suddenly falling asleep, and having to keep running to the ‘bathroom’. Not a single photograph of her wearing glasses is known, but we know she had them as she refers in a diary to her ‘spex’. But the problem was not just optometric. She visited a consultant in London, who it seems told her he could do nothing for her beyond a new lense prescription. This implies that the real problem was cataracts or something like macular degeneration. Her suddenly ‘falling asleep’ could have been just a hypothermic reaction to inactivity in the grossly underheated houses she lived in. Although Kittie says in a private letter that it is her ‘middle’ that plays her up, implying the problem is gastric, her spidery failing writing and blackouts could imply chronic urinary tract infection. She thought very highly of her G.P. in Ashford, a Dr Body (!), and he tried the latest medication for her gastric/urinary condition, but it didn’t work.
We shall probably never know what Kittie clinically had wrong with her. But the really interesting thing, in my view, is that nowhere does Kittie ever say what, clinically, she has been diagnosed as having. This, I think, is very characteristic of the Edwardians and, indeed, our recent forebears. You did not name your disease/complaint, because (a) medical terminology was for doctors, (b) you weren’t supposed to discuss illness openly, (c) your job was to keep a stiff upper lip through it all.
There is a graphic illustration of Kittie’s attitude to illness in her pocket diary for 1939 — and incidentally it shows that we must add the term ‘grip’ to ‘staunch’, ‘stalwart’ and ‘stout’ in our Edwardian vocabulary. She had had a fall in September or November 1938 (she is confused about which) and been badly concussed. This had aggravated her already existing proneness to falling asleep. But she was determined to battle on, and to write about it in her diary for 10 January 1939 even though this cost her great effort and her writing and self-expression were affected:
She had recovered by the beginning of March and was following political developments in Europe closely. Two months before war broke out she was able to revisit her birthplace, St Ernan’s Island Donegal, on a motoring holiday with Louise Rosales.
This is the most recent ‘Watch this Space’ post. For the archive of ‘Watch this Space’, please click here.
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