Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
George Calderon, 1912
George Calderon c.1901
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Captain of the 11
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
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)Recent Comments
- Jim D G Miles on From the diary of a writer-publisher: 28 Excellent entry, Dad. I like the escape room picture, of course, but the story about the Russian and the hole-in-the-wall is exceptional! (28/03/2024 at 9:58 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Short story: ‘Crox’ Thank you, dear anonymous Theo...it is so refreshing to hear the reaction of a Man of the People! Keep a good grip on those cords! 'Part II'?! The rest is secreted in lines (18/12/2023 at 10:33 PM)
- Theo on Short story: ‘Crox’ Delicious! "Are you being Served?" meets "Keeping up Appearances" via Calderotica. But Patrick, you cannot leave us dangling like that just before Christmas! One thing - c (18/12/2023 at 1:35 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Thank you, Damian, for sharing your problem with us. It's difficult to know what to prescribe. Perhaps try examining the facts of the story (e.g. there are not 6 medics in the (20/11/2023 at 9:44 AM)
- Damian Grant on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Patrick: I read your story 'Black Tie' on Monday, and knew immediately that it didn't work for me. There was something forced, factitious; something that didn't let the elemen (17/11/2023 at 2:26 PM)
A biographer worries…
A big challenge for the biographer when his subject died in the trenches is, frankly, stylistic: should he/she go with the deepening muffled drums, the lugubrious blanket that descends on your prose as the end draws closer?
No, in my opinion. The biographer must carry on as though he/she does not know the end. He/she must always write ‘in the present’ and not give way to culturally approved, even ‘ritualised’, ways of narrating World War I death. Leave it to your subject to say when he/she was becoming depressed by it all.
About three years ago, the last sentence of the last chapter of George Calderon’s life ‘came’ to me. I filed it in memory and lived with it for two years. Then it struck me as too portentous and another came to me. Since then I have binned about six ‘last sentences’. Now I understand that I have to live with no last sentences at all. The story of his last ten months has to be made present to the reader as I write it, and that is all. Where the last sentence is concerned, what will be will be.
Tomorrow, then, back to the ‘present’ (August 1914).
Next Entry: 14 August 1914
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