Tag Archives: The Great War

Watch this Space

2/11/15. I have a hunch that the word ‘unconscionable’ features regularly in biographers’ conversations with themselves… It has taken me an ‘unconscionable’ four and a half years to reach the endgame of writing George Calderon’s biography, when I thought it would take … Continue reading

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Watch this Space

26/10/15. It was remiss of me, in my last Comment, not to address the first paragraph of Clare Hopkins’s last Comment, which concerned commemoration. Clare began the paragraph by asking ‘Can there ever be a last word on the subject … Continue reading

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Watch this Space

2/09/15. If you haven’t seen the latest cracker of a Comment from Clare Hopkins, I recommend that you do (top right)…and contribute to the discussion! Clare is absolutely right that in ‘laying out George and Kitties daily lives’ I have invited readers … Continue reading

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Watch this Space

6/8/15. I was flabbergasted last week when the TLS featured ‘Calderonia’ a second time on its very popular blog, this time to mark our closing (see link on right under ‘Related’ to ‘Second TLS blog post’). I cannot thank Michael Caines … Continue reading

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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

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29 July 1915

29th July, 1915. The Military Secretary presents his compliments to Mrs Calderon, and begs to thank her for her letter of July 26th, and to inform her that a form of enquiry on behalf of her husband will be sent … Continue reading

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28 July 1915

Brit. Red Cross St Mark’s Buildings Alexandria July 20.1915 Kitty dear One of our workers found another Sgt Major Allan, B Company, 1st K.O.S.B. in hospital here. The report that this man gave was sent to London last week, and you … Continue reading

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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

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26 July 1915

Today, Monday 26 July 1915, Kittie wrote the above letter to Military Secretary 3 (Casualties) at the War Office. I have not transcribed it, as she has written it as clearly as possible. Even so, she has omitted an apostrophe … Continue reading

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25 July 1915

Today Kittie received a long letter from the Liberal historian, journalist and political advisor John Lawrence Le Breton Hammond (usually known as Lawrence Hammond). I cannot reproduce it, because it is still in copyright, but I will précis it and … Continue reading

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REVIEW. Lorna C. Beckett, The Second I Saw You: The True Love Story of Rupert Brooke and Phyllis Gardner (British Library, 2015), 208 pp.

The chance sight of an email that I sent my military research assistant on 22 July 2014 recalls me with a start to the fact that I began researching the last year of George Calderon’s life exactly a year ago! … Continue reading

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23 July 1915

British Red Cross and Order of St John Enquiry Department for Wounded and Missing 20, Arlington Street, S.W. July 23 Dear Mrs Calderon, Mr Lubbock telegraphs to us from Alexandria that 6424 Sergt. Smith, K.O.S.B. returning on the hospital ship … Continue reading

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22 July 1915

On or about this day, Kittie received Percy Lubbock’s note of 13 July from Alexandria, enclosing the statement he had taken in hospital that day from the ‘wrong’ Sergeant-Major Allen of the 1st KOSB. Although Percy had dated it the … Continue reading

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21 July 1915

On or about this day, Gertrude Bell, administrator of the Enquiry Department for Wounded and Missing at the London office of the Red Cross and Order of St John, received the witness statement that a volunteer in a hospital in … Continue reading

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Flashback — and tourbillions in Time (again)

The Imperial War Museum invited me to contribute a post to their Research Blog, and I promptly accepted. I am not, of course, a military historian, and when I started researching the last ten months of George’s life I was … Continue reading

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De-appled

With less than a fortnight before the blog closes, I would like to tie up as many loose ends as possible. But, of course, people’s lives aren’t like that… One end, however, that has suddenly been almost tied up is … Continue reading

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