Tag Archives: ‘real time’

The biographer blurts

Ah dear, it’s time to come clean. The ‘disaster’ has happened: this blog is now a fortnight ahead of the writing of my biography itself. I finished Chapter 14 of the biography with George going over the top on 4 … Continue reading

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Fast developments

Yesterday and the day before I did some entirely new research on correlating what documents we have about these few days of Kittie’s life. The result is, of course, still only an hypothesis, but I think it is a plausible … Continue reading

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14 June 1915

Bell received Kittie’s letter this Monday morning and replied immediately in her rapid administrator writing: Dear Mrs Calderon, We telegraphed yesterday about Mr Calderon, at the request of the War Office. I do so very deeply sympathise with your anxiety … Continue reading

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George Calderon: a tribute

As I have written before, the question everyone asks me is: ‘Who is George Calderon?’ Perhaps unconsciously, some people seem to intonate this as a rhetorical question implying: ‘Why are you spending years of your life writing about a person … Continue reading

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‘Nothing happened’

It is a very curious thing, but in none of the sources that I have used for understanding the full military context of George’s life on Gallipoli does the date 29 May feature. Nor did he write a letter to … Continue reading

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The bifurcator biffed

Faithful followers of this blog know that since last September I have been dogged by the rival claims of writing the blog and finishing the biography. The methods of each are so different that at times it’s felt schizophrenic — … Continue reading

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The Arakan ‘mystery’

The other evening, I met a friend at a party who told me she had recently taken part in a reading of George’s ‘Romantic Comedy in One Act’, The Maharani of Arakan. I was amazed, as I had not heard of … Continue reading

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Easter 1915

Today, 4 April 1915, was Easter Day. Kittie Calderon went to church, but we do not know if George did. At Steep, Hampshire, Edward Thomas wrote his poem ‘In Memoriam’:      The flowers left thick at nightfall in the … Continue reading

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‘Bifurcation’ and ‘chronotopia’ again

Those who have been on my journey since 30 July 1914/2014 will remember that six weeks into it (12 September) I wrote about the problem I was having of holding in my head the two activities of writing the blog … Continue reading

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Time and the biographer

I have received a long and very interesting letter from John Dewey, author of the superb Mirror of the Soul: A Life of the Poet Fyodor Tyutchev (2010), commenting on my various posts over the last three months that touch on … Continue reading

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‘Calderonia’: an update

New followers of the blog deserve an explanation, I feel, of why the last four posts have been purely military and what stage ‘Calderonia’ is at. The main object of the blog is to follow the last year of writer … Continue reading

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The dear departed

After writing the last sentence of George’s life in its strict earthly sense (I have two short chapters about his and Kittie’s afterlife still to write), I left the manuscript chapter for a day before coming back to revise it, as … Continue reading

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The Scott syndrome

Two days ago, I happened to hear on Radio 3 Sarah Walker’s introduction to her ‘Choice’ on Essential Classics, which was Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica (sic). As I recall it now, she said that the composer was commissioned to write the … Continue reading

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Chronotopia cured, or ‘a biographer…writes’

In my post on 12 September, I described how writing the blog nearly every day whilst attempting to finish the book had induced a kind of schizophrenia: the blog tells the last year of George Calderon’s life day by day … Continue reading

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Reactions

It has been suggested to me that the lack of Comments on the blog, after four months, is an indication of the ‘maturity’ (i.e. 60-plus) of its visitors and followers. You prefer to email me than bruit your reactions to … Continue reading

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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

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