The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George Calderon c.1901
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George Calderon, 1912
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)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Captain of the 11
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Frontis piece by Frank CalderonRecent 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)
Tag Archives: Ypres
‘Literally for this…’
This is the most original, enjoyable, moving and impressive book about the First World War that I have read since the centenary began. It is not a ‘history’ book like Max Hastings’s Catastrophe, say, Peter Hart’s Gallipoli, or David Reynolds’s The Long … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Adlestrop, Army Veterinary Corps, Belgium, birds, British Expeditionary Force, cats, comments, Dardanelles, David Reynolds, dogs, Edward Elgar, Edward Thomas, Edward Thomas's reason for signing up, Eleanor Farjeon, Ford Madox Hueffer, Gallipoli, George Calderon, horses, John Lewis-Stempel, Max Hastings, Nature, Peter Hart, rabbits, rats, skylarks, The Great War, Warhorse, World War I, Ypres
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A soft landing and season’s greetings!
After five and a half years living full time with writing this book, I am somewhat dazed by the soft landing of Bibliography, Acknowledgements and the odd tidying up. I am a bit light-headed. It feels unreal, especially compared with … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, Calderon project, Calderonia, Christmas, comments, Dardanelles, finishing, Gallipoli, George Calderon, holly, Kittie Calderon, New Year, Patrick Miles, publishers, season's greetings, sheds, The Great War, World War I, Ypres
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‘…but Mr Jones does look a nice dog’
After enduring a long bout of illness and the first anniversary of George’s disappearance at Gallipoli, in the summer of 1916 Kittie decided she must channel her energies into a number of useful and therapeutic activities. One of these was … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, Battle of the Somme, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, Clement Quinn, coal mining, comments, Dardanelles, Eric Gill, Gallipoli, George Calderon, India, John Masefield, Jones, Joseph Cribb, Katharine Ripley, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Lucknow, Mr Jones, photographs, Robert Holmes, Sheffield, soldiers' letters, The Great War, The Raj, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I, Ypres, Zeppelins
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‘The Long Shadow’, War Poetry, and Commemoration
Faithful followers of this blog will recall my account on 16 December 2015 of Professor David Reynolds’s public lecture ‘Making Peace with the Great War: Centenary Reflections’. I have now read the book behind the lecture (see above) and … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Adrian Gregory, atrocities, Belgium, Brexit, British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, concentration camps, Damian Grant, David Reynolds, EU, Forester's House, General French, General Kitchener, Isaac Rosenberg, La Maison Forestière, Pals battalions, propaganda, Siegfried Sassoon, The Great War, The Holocaust, The Long Shadow, Thiepval, Treaty of Versailles, War Poets, Wilfred Owen, Wilfred Owen Association (France), World War I, Ypres
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A letter to the ‘Manchester Guardian’, 12 May 1919
Sir, — The recent notice in the “Times” of George Calderon’s death in battle on Gallipoli tells his friends that they may hope no longer. To us the loss is inexpressible. That which the theatre has suffered cannot, of course, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Annie Horniman, comments, Dardanelles, Gaiety Theatre Manchester, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Manchester Guardian, Manchester Repertory Company, military interpreters, obituaries, Percy Lubbock, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Great War, The Times, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
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‘Edwardian bastards’ — a personal note
Periodically I have to remind myself that in the 1950s I met plenty of Edwardians, in the sense of people whose character and values were formed in the longer Edwardian period of 1897-1916 and who were thought of as being … Continue reading
Somme: the ‘walking’ controversy
When I read Harvey Pitcher’s Comment of 1 July about the Bishop of London’s address in Westminster Abbey commemorating the eve of the Battle of the Somme, I took it that the Bishop was quoting the order to WALK across … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Battle of the Somme, Bishop of London, Clare Hopkins, comments, common sense, Damian Grant, Dardanelles, deserters, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, General Henry Rawlinson, Harvey Pitcher, Hugh Sebag Montefiore, Mametz, Military Intelligence, Montauban, Richard Chartres, Stephen Tempest, The Great War, World War I, Ypres
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The Somme: over to you
It won’t, I think, surprise followers to hear that I know next to nothing about the Battle of the Somme compared with Ypres 1 and Gallipoli, which George Calderon fought at and which we covered from day to day in … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged attrition, Battle of the Somme, British Expeditionary Force, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, Hugh Sebag Montefiore, Imperial War Museum, Martin Middlebrook, Peter Hart, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I, Ypres
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The Brave Little Tailor
7/5/16. The good news is that I have finished my fundamental revision of the biography. It can rest for a few weeks until I give it the final slow, close read. I turn now to writing the Introduction. These things … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Alison Miles, biography, British Library, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, feng shui, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Graeme Wright, Harvey Pitcher, James Muckle, Karen Spink, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Martin Shaw, The Great War, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
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Watch this Space
23/3/16. I have now revised 92% of the typescript of my book. I shall tackle the last two chapters, which cover Kittie’s life 1915-50, after Easter. One reason for leaving them till then is that there are two pieces of … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Adrian Gregory, American Civil War, biographies, biography, commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, Drew Gilpin Faust, Emily Dickinson, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Louis Menand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, sacrifice, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Stanley Spencer, The Great War, war poetry, War Poets, Wilfred Owen, World War I, Ypres
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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 … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Calderonia, comments, Constance Garnett, Dardanelles, deadlines, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Jenny Hands, political parties, Taoism, The Great War, The Stage Society, trade unionism, World War I, Ypres
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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 … Continue reading
30 July 1915: ‘Ends’
It does not seem exactly a year since the small boys Jack and Roly Pym ran across from their holiday home at Seaview on the Isle of Wight to greet George Calderon, a kind of uncle to them, who had … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, Ashford, biographies, biography, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Carl Jung, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, Derwent May, Elizabeth Ellis, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, Isle of Wight, Jack Pym, James Muckle, John Dewey, John Pym, Johnnie Pym, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Louisa Scherchen, Michael Welch, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Percy Lubbock, Peter Hart, Roly Pym, Sam Evans, Seaview, Sheet, Tahiti, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Violet Pym, White Raven, World War I, Ypres
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The War
Im Westen nichts Neues is the title of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous novel, usually rendered in English as All Quiet on the Western Front. Its literal translation, however, is In the West Nothing New. The deadly sniping, sapping, night raids, shelling … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged All Quiet on the Western Front, ANZAC, Battle of Loos, British Expeditionary Force, comments, conscription, Dardanelles, Edwardianism, Erich Maria Remarque, Erich von Falkenhayn, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, Imperial War Museum, Jack Harley, King's Own Scottish Borderers, KOSB, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Peter Hart, Sir John French, submarines, Suvla, The Carpathians, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, V.I. Lenin, Vilna, Warsaw, World War I, Ypres, Zeppelins
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The War
Every day brings another press extract in The Times’s ‘The First World War’ series, every week another email in their history of the war, and the stream of Tweets from the Imperial War Museum, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, historical institutions, the … Continue reading →