The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Captain of the 11
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
George Calderon, 1912
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George Calderon c.1901
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
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)
Tag Archives: British Expeditionary Force
John Baines: exemplar of a young officer
‘Exemplar’, not ‘exemplary’, because John Stanhope Baines, son of the Herbert Stanhope Baines who features in Laurence Brockliss’s recent guest post, would not have wanted anyone to regard him as an exemplary young officer of World War I. When he … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Andrew Baines, Armistice, Austro-Hungary, Baines dynasty, Belgium, British Expeditionary Force, Bulgaria, Dearest Mother, Elisabeth Wicksteed, Elizabeth Baines, Erich Ludendorff, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Germany, Greece, Helion, Herbert Stanhope Baines, Honor Baines, Joanna Palmer, John Baines, Laurence Brockliss, Macedonia, Raphael Kirchner, roadmaking, Royal Engineers, Salonika, Sappers, The Great War, The Leeds Mercury, The Times, Turkey, Winchester College, Windsor Spring Festival, World War I, Ypres
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Guest post: Andrew Tatham, ‘A Group Photograph and the Pursuit of Personal History’
If there’s anything to be learned from biography it is that chance meetings can change lives. I first met Patrick Miles next to the warmth of the Aga in my cousin’s kitchen in 2006. I had met many of my … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Group Photograph, Andrew Tatham, art films, Battle of Passchendaele, Belgium, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, Cyril Kingerlee, Elaine Kingerlee, exhibitions, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gyles Brandreth, history, I Shall Not Be Away Long, Jeremy Vine, John Carey, Keith Simpson MP, Martin Middlebrook, Melvyn Bragg, Norfolk Open Studios, Passchendaele, Patrick Miles, Stephen Lucena, The Great War, William Boyd, World War I, Ypres
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‘People are reading an awful lot…
…and many booksellers are doing mail order,’ writes Susan Hill in The Spectator. I should say they are! Click the prompt at the bottom of this post to buy my blockbuster biography from Sam&Sam while stocks last! Obsessed with self-image, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged activism, Anna Karenina, Anton Chekhov, biographies, British Expeditionary Force, Dardanelles, Edward VII, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Kittie Calderon, Middlemarch, New Drama, Nina Corbet, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, polymathery, portfolio career, publicity, Russia, Sam&Sam, self-isolation, Susan Hill, Tahiti, The Edwardians, The Great War, The Spectator, Third Battle of Krithia, Times Literary Supplement, World War I, Ypres
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First biography of Gallipoli war hero
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not. Wilfred Owen Although at 45 well over-age, George Calderon was determined in 1914 to get to the Front. He signed up on 4 August 1914 and went with the Blues … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Achi Baba, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, KOSB, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Royal Horse Guards, Tahiti, The Blues, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Twelve Tree Copse, World War I, Ypres
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‘Bugles calling for them…’
It is a source of sorrow to me that for unforeseeable reasons I have not been able to honour my acceptance two years ago of an extremely kind invitation from the Wilfred Owen Association (France) to attend the commemoration today … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anthem for Doomed Youth, British Expeditionary Force, bugles, commemoration, comments, Dulce et Decorum, English language, George Calderon, Greater Love, historians, Ivor Gurney, Ors, Poets Corner, Rupert Brooke, Sambre-Oise Canal, Siegfried Sassoon, The Great War, war poetry, War Poets, Wilfred Owen, Wilfred Owen Association, World War I
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The War, chronotopia and commemoration
Many people deny the existence of a ‘national mood’ and ‘national consciousness’. I certainly don’t believe in the latter, any more than I accept the idea of a collective soul (the ‘Russian Soul’ etc). But I think there is a … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Group Photograph, Alrewas, Andrew Tatham, Armistice Day, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, chronotopia, closure, commemoration, comments, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Dan Snow, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Gallipoli Memorial, George Calderon, Imperial War Museum, Kemal Atatürk, Laurence Brockliss, March Offensive, memorialisation, Mustafa Kemal, Nadir Imamoğlu, national consciousness, National Memorial Arboretum, national mood, On This Day, Patrick Cordingley, Remembrance Sunday, Russian Soul, SANDS, Shot at Dawn Memorial, Tate Britain, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Twelve Tree Copse, World War I
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Interlude on a familiar theme
Clays have pleasantly surprised me by discovering that they have over-printed by not 20 copies, which is the number under/over contractually allowed, but 59 — which they offer me at an extraordinarily good price including free delivery. I have snapped … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged 14-18 NOW, Arts Council, biographies, biography, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, Brexit, British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, Dalby Forest, Danny Boyle, Die Zeit, Europe, Fly By Night, George Calderon, Kenneth Bogle, Millicent Fawcett, official art, Paul Cummins, personal connection, Rachel Whiteread, Richard Morrison, Shrouds of the Somme, taxpayers, The Cenotaph, the government, The Great War, The Times, Tom Piper, Wilfred Owen, William Orpen, World War I
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Brexit: a modest theory
The Times digest of events in the Great War and Mike Schuster’s Great War Project continue to come down the wires once a week, together with scores of daily Tweets from the Imperial War Museum, from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, from … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Battle of Mons, Battle of Passchendaele, Battle of the Somme, Belgium, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, Brexit, British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, EU Referendum, Europe, Mike Schuster, Paul Cummins, The Great War, The Times, Tom Piper, Winston Churchill, World War I
3 Comments
Dulc(e) et decor(um) est…
I have always been uncomfortable with what I take to be the popular interpretation of Wilfred Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum est. My first experience of it was in about 1962 from the lips of our young English teacher, a … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A.J.P. Taylor, Alan Clark, British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, Dulce et Decorum, Edward Thomas, George Calderon, Henry Newbolt, Horace, Jessie Pope, Joan Littlewood, kitchen sink drama, Laurence Binyon, Rome, scansion, Seamus Heaney, The Great War, Wilfred Owen, Wilfred Owen Association (France), World War I
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‘Literally for this…’
This is the most original, enjoyable, moving and impressive book about the First World War that I have read since the centenary began. It is not a ‘history’ book like Max Hastings’s Catastrophe, say, Peter Hart’s Gallipoli, or David Reynolds’s The Long … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Adlestrop, Army Veterinary Corps, Belgium, birds, British Expeditionary Force, cats, comments, Dardanelles, David Reynolds, dogs, Edward Elgar, Edward Thomas, Edward Thomas's reason for signing up, Eleanor Farjeon, Ford Madox Hueffer, Gallipoli, George Calderon, horses, John Lewis-Stempel, Max Hastings, Nature, Peter Hart, rabbits, rats, skylarks, The Great War, Warhorse, World War I, Ypres
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‘…but Mr Jones does look a nice dog’
After enduring a long bout of illness and the first anniversary of George’s disappearance at Gallipoli, in the summer of 1916 Kittie decided she must channel her energies into a number of useful and therapeutic activities. One of these was … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, Battle of the Somme, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, Clement Quinn, coal mining, comments, Dardanelles, Eric Gill, Gallipoli, George Calderon, India, John Masefield, Jones, Joseph Cribb, Katharine Ripley, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Lucknow, Mr Jones, photographs, Robert Holmes, Sheffield, soldiers' letters, The Great War, The Raj, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I, Ypres, Zeppelins
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‘He became his admirers…’
W.H. Auden’s ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’ describes Yeats’s death in January 1939, culminating in: ‘The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.’ I often think the word should be ‘readers’ rather than ‘admirers’, for as Auden himself … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, For the Fallen, George Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Remembrance Day, Rupert Brooke, The Great War, The Soldier, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, war memorials, World War I
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‘The Long Shadow’, War Poetry, and Commemoration
Faithful followers of this blog will recall my account on 16 December 2015 of Professor David Reynolds’s public lecture ‘Making Peace with the Great War: Centenary Reflections’. I have now read the book behind the lecture (see above) and … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Adrian Gregory, atrocities, Belgium, Brexit, British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, concentration camps, Damian Grant, David Reynolds, EU, Forester's House, General French, General Kitchener, Isaac Rosenberg, La Maison Forestière, Pals battalions, propaganda, Siegfried Sassoon, The Great War, The Holocaust, The Long Shadow, Thiepval, Treaty of Versailles, War Poets, Wilfred Owen, Wilfred Owen Association (France), World War I, Ypres
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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 13
18 December It feels like a new record: a week has passed since our, in their own words, ‘very striking’ advertisement of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius appeared in the TLS, and it hasn’t brought us a single sale! The line between self-justification … Continue reading →