Tag Archives: Fort Brockhurst

‘bubbling with wit and good humour’

In a letter to the TLS  (9 July 2010) I appealed for unpublished letters or works of George Calderon, but also asked readers to contact me if they had ‘come across references to him in obscure publications’. My thinking was that … 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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Letter from Alexandria

  BRITISH RED CROSS and ORDER OF ST. JOHN. Alexandria June 27. Dear Kitty Your letter of June 16 just reaches me. I scrawl one line to go to you at once. I think it certain that you must know … Continue reading

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16 June 1915

Unless you are from a military background, you might not realise that soldiers on active service strive to report back to Battalion HQ at home, or how much other regiments exchange information from the battlefield with each other at home, … Continue reading

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De-appling

In my 22 January post I explained the meaning of the Edwardian verb ‘to apple’. I mentioned that five lines in George’s letter to Kittie of 10 May 1915 were ‘appled out’ and I was following up ‘forensic programmes’ for … Continue reading

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13 May 1915

If Kittie was still at Devonport, when she opened her curtains in the hotel this morning she would have seen that the Orsova had vanished. At midnight last night, in George’s words of three days later, the huge ship ‘suddenly went … Continue reading

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12 May 1915

It is not 100% clear when Kittie returned to the B&B at Brockhurst that she and George had stayed in on the weekend of 8-9th before leaving for Devonport on Monday 10th, but the implication of something George says in … Continue reading

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11 May 1915

The troop ship Orsova was now lying at its buoy offshore at Devonport. George imagined Kittie ‘following our adventures with a telescope from the Hotel’. Next entry: 12 May 1915

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Transfiguration and parting

Today, 10 May 1915, which was a Monday, George and Kittie set out on the 140-mile journey by train from Gosport to the naval base of Devonport, where he was to embark for an unknown destination. Five other officers from … Continue reading

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Hypothesis, or conspiracy theory?

Whilst writing Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky reminded himself in his notebook that he must ‘establish why Raskol’nikov killed the old woman’; although he had already suggested several reasons in the novel. The question ‘why George Calderon insisted on signing up at the … Continue reading

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8 May 1915

Today Kittie accompanied George to Brockhurst, where they stayed two days, probably at a B&B called Warwick House run by a Mrs Seymour. On the train journey, it is highly probable that George bought The Times and read a sensational letter … Continue reading

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7 May 1915: Farewell to friends

A telegram arrived at tea-time on the Friday [7 May 1915] saying he would be home that evening for one night’s leave only to return next day to Fort Brockhurst to await immediate orders to go on active service. His Mother, sister, … Continue reading

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3 May 1915

By now Sir Ian Hamilton had lost over a quarter of his fighting force at Helles and desperately needed reinforcements. Churchill, Fisher and Kitchener, acting on the British and French admirals’ telegrams, anticipated Hamilton in his request and troops were … Continue reading

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George Calderon’s ‘magnum opus’

27 April 1915 was a Tuesday, so George was presumably back at Fort Brockhurst, having returned from weekend leave yesterday. The only other literary work that he may have tinkered with when he was home at weekends was a book … Continue reading

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The note darkens

I did not notice it when I got to this point in writing the chapter in my biography, but the day-by-day ‘real time’ of the blog has brought it home to me: the note has definitely darkened by this date … Continue reading

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21 April 1915

Fortis est veritas 9th Batt. Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Wednesday My dear Mother,           Haven’t I been writing regularly? Well, you know there’s plenty to do here, and once I’ve got off a sheet to … Continue reading

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