Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon, 1912
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Captain of the 11
George Calderon c.1901
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913Recent 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: The Great War
Future biographers of George Calderon…
Even at this late stage, ‘things keep coming up’. It took me, as predicted, two pretty full days to input to the text of my biography (167,000 words) the 1000+ corrections and revisions that emerged from my two complete readings … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, British Library, Christianity, comments, Dardanelles, EPMOS, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Humanism, Kittie Calderon, Kropotkin, Laurence Binyon, Lydia Yavorskaya, Paul Boyer, Percy Lubbock, Petr Kropotkin, Spinoza, Tahiti, Taoism, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, theism, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I
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From the diary of a countrywoman
In December 1922 Kittie moved from Hampstead with her housekeeper Elizabeth Ellis to ‘Kay’s Crib’, a Victorian three-bedroomed house with a fair amount of ground to it at Sheet, near Petersfield, in Hampshire. She told a friend of Percy Lubbock’s: … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Kay's Crib', Alan Lubbock, biographies, biography, Brasted, Bunty, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Captain Gilbert Piggott, Charles Letts's Diary, Clara Calderon, comments, Dardanelles, diary, Eliza Stewart, Elizabeth Ellis, Foxwold, Gallipoli, gardening, George Calderon, Gertrude Corbet, Hampshire, Hampstead, Helen Lubbock, Kittie Calderon, Mrs Stewart of Torquay, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Petersfield, Sheet, The Croft, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Torquay, Violet Pym, World War I
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‘Solved!’
I am so relieved to have completed the re-hoover of my 165,000-word typescript in six working days — approximately a fifth of the time my disastrous ‘final’ hoover took (see ‘O, fallacem hominum spem!’ of 27 July). I must say, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Afterword, biographies, biography, comments, Downton Abbey, George Calderon, Introduction, introductions, Kittie Calderon, readers, reading public, The Great War, World War I
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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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John Hamilton the Good/Great?
At this time one hundred years ago, after the first anniversary of her husband’s disappearance at Gallipoli, Kittie Calderon decided it would be wise to channel her energies into a number of projects. One of these was to erect a memorial … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged causeway, Dardanelles, democracy, Dermot James, Donegal, Donegal Bay, Eric Gill, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Home Rule, Ireland, James Hamilton, John Hamilton, John Pakenham Hamilton, Kittie Calderon, landlordism, Mary Simson, memorial tablet, Orangemen, Potato Famine, Ribbonmen, St Andrews, St Ernan's, St Ernan's Island, The Great War, World War I
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Archive
In my last post I should have explained that some of my fury at having to check again every quotation and fact in the typescript came from the necessity it entailed of taking scores of manuscripts out of George and … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, archives, biographies, biography, camphor, cigarettes, comments, George Calderon, haibun, haikus, Kittie Calderon, Lucknow, manuscripts, patina, roses, smells, The Great War, tuberculosis, World War I
5 Comments
‘O, fallacem hominum spem!’
This tag from Cicero, meaning ‘Oh how deceptive is men’s hope!’, may be heard on the lips of Chekhov buffs when disappointed about something, followed sotto voce by Kulygin’s line: ‘Accusative with exclamation…’ (Act 2, Three Sisters). It is certainly appropriate … Continue reading
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 Somme: a memory
In July 1970, whilst waiting to hear whether I had been awarded a grant to do a Ph.D. on Chekhov, I worked for six weeks in the male wing of a ‘mental hospital’ near my home. I place the words … Continue reading
…and a brain surgeon writes
Much as I am enjoying writing this blog free of the constraints of 1914-15 Time, I think long-term followers may understand when I say that I still think of my 1914-15 ‘blography’ of George as Calderonia proper. Those followers will remember … Continue reading
A posh word for it…
The other day, I came across a word that was new to me: apophenia. It is not in Chambers Dictionary, and at first I wondered whether it was a misprint. But, of course, there is masses about it on the internet. … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged apophenia, biographies, biography, Claus Konrad, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Man in the Moon, paranoia, pareidolia, schizophrenia, solipsism, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Wikipedia, World War I
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Thank you; and Bunty!
Last Thursday here in Cambridge I went to see a new production of Patrick Marber’s version of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, set in Britain 1945. I would be surprised if there is a tougher, less sentimental play touring England at this moment (it … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged August Strindberg, biographies, biography, Bunty, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, cats, Clare Hopkins, comments, Constance Sutton, dogs, Foxwold, George Calderon, Harry Ricketts, Jack Pym, Jenny Hands, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Miss Julie, Nina Corbet, Patrick Marber, Robert Nichols, The Great War, war poetry, World War I
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Is this George Calderon?
Just as music gives people ‘ear-worms’, so biography brings us ‘phantom flies in amber’. As I explained in my posts of 5 January and 1 April 2015, over time the biographer becomes convinced s/he has seen things in print that … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged beetles, biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, ear-worms, flies in amber, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, photographs, The Blues, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I
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A terrible anniversary
George Calderon is presumed to have died just after noon at the Third Battle of Krithia on 4 June 1915. Obviously, I refer first-time blog-visitors to my posts for that and subsequent days last year, the actual centenary of the … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Brigadier-General Napier, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Helles, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Major G.B. Stoney, River Clyde, Stanley Spencer, Søren Kierkegaard, The Cherry Orchard, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, William Rothenstein, World War I
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Intemperance and ‘Heroism’
On 30 August 1920, Kittie received through the post the first draft of Laurence Binyon’s ode to George’s memory, see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57345 . She was at Constance Sutton’s Tudor home in Herefordshire, Brinsop Court, and wrote to Binyon next day that she had … Continue reading →