There is no documentary evidence for what George did between 17 and 23 December 1914, when he and Kittie left for what she described as ‘a delightful Christmas at Foxwold [Brasted, Kent] with the Pyms’. But we can be pretty sure that he used the time to plot his return to combatant service. Sir Coote Hedley, who was high up at the War Office (see ‘The Godfather in War’, 26 August) doubtless advised him on how to break through the red tape, although Hedley believed that George would be best employed in Intelligence.
Another contact George may have used was Henry Newbolt, whom he had known since about 1898 and was politically close to. On 6 December 1914 Newbolt’s twenty-one-year-old son Francis wrote to George describing the regiment he, Francis, was now a member of, as the ‘magnificent’ Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Francis had not yet been on active service with them, but they had been fighting on the Western Front since Mons and had particularly distinguished themselves at the Battle of Nonnebosschen Wood, Ypres, on 11 November. His father had probably been instrumental in getting him a place in this regiment. This may be significant for George’s own military destiny.
As well as working on military matters, between 17 and 23 December 1914 Calderon may have been putting some of his literary manuscripts in order, particularly those of his ballets for Fokine, his study of early Slav religions, and Tahiti.
Next entry: Another big ‘Cauldron’
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George and Kittie Calderon 1905
George Calderon c.1901
George Calderon, 1912
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Captain of the 11
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
The next week
There is no documentary evidence for what George did between 17 and 23 December 1914, when he and Kittie left for what she described as ‘a delightful Christmas at Foxwold [Brasted, Kent] with the Pyms’. But we can be pretty sure that he used the time to plot his return to combatant service. Sir Coote Hedley, who was high up at the War Office (see ‘The Godfather in War’, 26 August) doubtless advised him on how to break through the red tape, although Hedley believed that George would be best employed in Intelligence.
Another contact George may have used was Henry Newbolt, whom he had known since about 1898 and was politically close to. On 6 December 1914 Newbolt’s twenty-one-year-old son Francis wrote to George describing the regiment he, Francis, was now a member of, as the ‘magnificent’ Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Francis had not yet been on active service with them, but they had been fighting on the Western Front since Mons and had particularly distinguished themselves at the Battle of Nonnebosschen Wood, Ypres, on 11 November. His father had probably been instrumental in getting him a place in this regiment. This may be significant for George’s own military destiny.
As well as working on military matters, between 17 and 23 December 1914 Calderon may have been putting some of his literary manuscripts in order, particularly those of his ballets for Fokine, his study of early Slav religions, and Tahiti.
Next entry: Another big ‘Cauldron’
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