Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Captain of the 11
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George Calderon c.1901
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
George Calderon, 1912
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906Recent Comments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)
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Tag Archives: military interpreters
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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10 April 1915: A professional soldier
Today the 9th Battalion Ox and Bucks at Fort Brockhurst near Portsmouth was converted from a Service Battalion to a Reserve Battalion. It comes as a shock: George Calderon’s training as a lieutenant was over, and he could volunteer or … Continue reading
9 January 1915: Commission
This is the final state of George Calderon’s application for a commission: The writing in red ink across the left hand side of the form reads: ‘Temporary Commission as Lieutenant in 9 Battln Oxford & Bucks Light Inftr & order … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character
Tagged anti-suffragism, Anton Chekhov, Brian Harrison, commissions, Coote Hedley, Francis Newbolt, George Calderon, Henry Newbolt, Julia Bush, military interpreters, Oxford, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, The Great War, Trinity College Oxford, World War I
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The Medical
About now, Thursday 7 January 1915, George Calderon went before a Board for medical examination. It is rather surprising how little concrete information one can obtain now about military medical examination procedures in the First World War. Recurrent themes are … Continue reading
(Commentary)
Staggered by flu, I did not have the energy to add any comments to my post of George’s New Year letter to William Rothenstein; but I will offer a few points now. William Rothenstein is an extremely interesting figure. He … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Augustus John, comments, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Harold Nicolson, Il'ia Tolstoi, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Percy Lubbock, Tahiti, The Great War, Vita Sackville-West, William Rothenstein, World War I, Ypres
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17 December 1914
42 WELL WALK, … Continue reading
‘We are not bamboozled’
About now George Calderon was informed by letter, or told to his face, that his ‘real status’ was ‘that of interpreter’, i.e. not ‘second lieutenant’ as he had disingenuously interpolated in Form M.T. 393, APPLICATION FOR A TEMPORARY COMMISSION IN … Continue reading
The military situation (2)
The military situation in the Calderon household had worsened, from Kittie’s point of view. She could see that George’s wound was not fully closed, but he had managed to get down with her to Brasted and back on 29 November, … Continue reading
Zillebeke Churchyard Cemetery
This week I have received and read Jerry Murland’s 2010 book Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Churchyard Cemetery. Nothing, I think, could evoke so strongly the character and ethos of the men George Calderon was with at Ypres in … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Alexis de Gunzburg, Belgium, Colonel Gordon Wilson, George Calderon, Jerry Murland, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, Siege of Mafeking, The Blues, The Grand National, The Great War, Windmill Hill Camp, Winston Churchill, World War I, Ypres, Zillebeke
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The ‘Godfather in War’ visits
As Kittie put it, Calderon’s ‘great wish on getting back was to see Colonel Hedley and triumph over him’. (For Coote Hedley, see my post of 26 August.) The reason for this was that, in Kittie’s words, ‘on some occasion … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alexis de Gunzburg, Alexis Gunzberg, Belgium, Brigadier-General Charles Kavanagh, Colonel Gordon Wilson, Coote Hedley, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zillebeke, Zwarteleen
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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
Posted in Edwardian character, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Battle of Gheluvelt, Belgium, biography, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Michael Caines, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, Siegfried Sassoon, The Blues, The Great War, TLS blog, World War I, Ypres
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29 October 1914: ‘toothache in the ankle’
The German bombardment began at 5.30 a.m. and was concentrated on the Gheluvelt crossroads on the Menin Road (see map below). Falkenhayn’s plan was that having pushed the salient further in here, on 30th a general attack would be unleashed … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Army Group Fabeck, Belgium, Erich von Falkenhayn, General Fabeck, George Calderon, Gheluvelt Crossroads, Hollebeke, Ian F.W. Beckett, Kittie Calderon, Klein Zillebeke, Major-General Thompson Capper, map, Menin Road, Messines, military interpreters, Percy Lubbock, Royal Horse Guards, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zandvoorde
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28 October 1914
George wrote his long letter to Kittie today at supper time. There had been two developments during the day that directly led to attaining his object of becoming combatant, but he left them until the end of his letter. During … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure
Tagged Belgium, Colonel Gordon Wilson, Dixmude, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Nieuport, Royal Horse Guards, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Surgeon Major Pares, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Yser
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‘Stellenbosched’
For those who know only of Stellenbosch’s fine wines or distinguished university, I should explain that after the Second Boer War the British Army turned it into a verb meaning to park someone military in a job where their incompetence … Continue reading
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 →