Probably this evening, Sunday 18 October 1914, at eight o’clock, Calderon, Fitzgerald and other sick and wounded left Ypres in another juddering ‘motor lorry’. They drove for four hours. For the last two Calderon had to ‘sit outside to help find the way’, which presumably meant speaking French or Flemish.
Their destination was another transit camp, ‘this time a monkish seminary, dedicated to St. F. of Assisi, the family friend.’ George is referring here to the opening words of the 1753 Description, Arms, Origin and Descent of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Calderón de la Barca and its Descendants, as translated by his father P.H. Calderon: ‘So ancient and tender is the devotion, O Great Saint!, in which the family of Calderon hold your memory — that even before they took their present name, and ever since, journeying through Galicia, you honoured their House by resting under its roof, they have looked upon you as their tutelar Saint and Patron.’
Here in the ward I found the German officer from the wayside inn [i.e. the ‘estaminet’ of 15 October], sitting up, pretty cheerful, with one of his long strong arms cut off. Everybody treated him charmingly; he was a prisoner, but among brothers in the Officers’ Ward.
The phrase ‘among brothers’ is interesting. Truly, this was a ‘class’ War — not in any Leninist sense, but in the sense that when each class recognised itself in the enemy it treated him with impeccable manners as ‘one of us’.
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Captain of the 11
George Calderon c.1901
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
George Calderon, 1912
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
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?
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Under distinguished protection
Probably this evening, Sunday 18 October 1914, at eight o’clock, Calderon, Fitzgerald and other sick and wounded left Ypres in another juddering ‘motor lorry’. They drove for four hours. For the last two Calderon had to ‘sit outside to help find the way’, which presumably meant speaking French or Flemish.
Their destination was another transit camp, ‘this time a monkish seminary, dedicated to St. F. of Assisi, the family friend.’ George is referring here to the opening words of the 1753 Description, Arms, Origin and Descent of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Calderón de la Barca and its Descendants, as translated by his father P.H. Calderon: ‘So ancient and tender is the devotion, O Great Saint!, in which the family of Calderon hold your memory — that even before they took their present name, and ever since, journeying through Galicia, you honoured their House by resting under its roof, they have looked upon you as their tutelar Saint and Patron.’
The phrase ‘among brothers’ is interesting. Truly, this was a ‘class’ War — not in any Leninist sense, but in the sense that when each class recognised itself in the enemy it treated him with impeccable manners as ‘one of us’.
Next entry: The TLS link
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