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 have to redirect any of them to, for example, Foxwold (the Pyms’ home), Acton Reynald (the Corbets’ estate), or Brinsop Court (Constance Sutton’s residence).
Kittie was probably fully occupied by her work as a VAD (see my post for 1 August) and the fact that she now had three male refugees from Antwerp staying in the house. ‘Our small house [five storeys!] was full to overflowing,’ she wrote later, ‘even George’s dressing room and study were commandeered.’ She also had lots of local friends, for instance the poet Sturge Moore’s family next door, the Masefields opposite, the Hedleys…
On this day, 22 October 1914, units of the German Fourth Army crossed the Yser river/canal between Nieuport and Dixmude. Would this be the Belgians’ Mons? If the Belgian Army here had to retreat, Ypres would be surrounded from the north.
Next entry: 23 October 1914
