K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George Calderon c.1901
George Calderon, 1912
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Captain of the 11
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
George and Kittie Calderon 1905Recent Comments
- Catherine Brown on The diary of a writer-publisher: 38 Thank you so much for this wonderful recollection of Mr Prynne. In case of interest, my own, which concerns Prynne in the 1990s, is here:... (May 21, 2026 at 11:20 am)
- harvey pitcher on The diary of a writer-publisher: 37 well, i had a shock when you said you'd acquired a dog but then i saw it wasn't. i have nothing against dogs though i prefer cats but fiona is very opposed to dogs or rather... (April 15, 2026 at 4:35 pm)
- Laurence Brockliss on A new story by John Melmoth: ‘Snowballs’ What a pitch perfect short story: crisp, graphic, nostalgic, evocative and mischievous. The injustice of schoolboy punishments comes in many forms, is never forgotten and is... (March 10, 2026 at 10:09 am)
- Patrick Miles on The diary of a writer-publisher: 36 Wonderful, Andrew! Thank you very much. I will borrow that title, if you don't object... I hope you will allow Calderonia to feature your own next magnum opus after the Great... (February 28, 2026 at 8:18 am)
- Andrew Tatham on The diary of a writer-publisher: 36 A brilliantly evocative and thought-provoking medley of observations that would not be out of place in 'The collected life of a flat-cap penguin' (your words, only slightly... (February 27, 2026 at 9:48 am)
Author Archives: Patrick Miles
‘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
A different mystery, then
You may remember that under ‘A lacuna’ (27 September) and ‘Pause and enigma’ (11 October) I described my attempts to solve the ‘mystery’ of Henry Calderon, George’s second-eldest brother. He had never featured in any of George and Kittie’s extant … Continue reading
Words (Edwardian) again
There was a long news item in The Times last week headed ‘Army gallantry awards under fire’. To clarify, this was not about awards-made-under-fire, but about ‘Britain’s centuries-old military honours system’ being ‘questioned amid allegations that a second Military Cross has … Continue reading
Chronotopia cured, or ‘a biographer…writes’
In my post on 12 September, I described how writing the blog nearly every day whilst attempting to finish the book had induced a kind of schizophrenia: the blog tells the last year of George Calderon’s life day by day … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', biographies, biography, chronotopes, chronotopia, comments, George Calderon, The Great War, World War I
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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
The military situation (1)
In the course of the First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November 1914), the French, Belgian and British armies had fought Falkenhayn’s army to a standstill; but at a terrible cost. Beckett (2013) estimates German losses at a … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Belgium, British Expeditionary Force, comments, Dardanelles, Erich Ludendorff, Erich von Falkenhayn, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Herbert Asquith, Kittie Calderon, Paul von Hindenburg, Sir Henry Rawlinson, The Great War, Theobald Bethmann Hollweg, Thompson Capper, Venetia Stanley, Winston Churchill, World War I, Ypres
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Birthday
Today, 2 December 1914, was George Calderon’s forty-sixth birthday. He most likely celebrated it over tea with Kittie and his mother; possibly a sister or brother also looked in. His mother, Clara Calderon (1836-1921), was the sister of painter George … Continue reading
29 November 1914
Today, a Sunday, George Calderon presented in person the white and pale blue blanket that he had knitted for his god-daughter Elizabeth Pym. Her christening took place at Brasted in Kent and the other godparents were Cecil Dawnay and Hannah … Continue reading
Reactions
It has been suggested to me that the lack of Comments on the blog, after four months, is an indication of the ‘maturity’ (i.e. 60-plus) of its visitors and followers. You prefer to email me than bruit your reactions to … Continue reading
The sexiest couple in Europe
Many passenger lists from a hundred years ago are available online, but it seems that those for ‘normal’ voyages within Europe were not preserved except in special circumstances. Thus I haven’t been able to establish exactly when the Fokine family … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 'Scheherazade', Anatolii Lunacharskii, Bergen, comments, Diaghilev, George Calderon, Hermann Goering, Juliet Nicolson, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Manolo Ordoño de Rosales, Michel Fokine, Moscow Arts, Norway, The Great War, Vaslav Nijinsky, Vera Fokine, Vitalii Fokine, World War I
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Home
If my dating of George’s letter to Riette and Dan Sturge Moore is correct, he returned home on or around Tuesday 24 November 1914. There he met the three Belgian refugees whom Kittie had taken in after the fall of … Continue reading
22 November 1914
It is Sunday, and presumably a quiet time at Sussex Lodge Hospital, so George Calderon writes to the Sturge Moore children: Dear Riettte and Dan, Thanks for your interesting letters — and to Mrs Moore too. I hope to be … Continue reading
Polymaths, or dilettantes?
It is intriguing that in his memoir Sturge Moore should refer to George only as a ‘scholar’ (see yesterday’s post). They had both written plays, George rather more successfully than Moore, and they had both been active in 1910 in … Continue reading
Visitors and ‘victory’
The fact that Calderon wrote to Daniel and Henriette Sturge Moore on Sunday 22 November 1914, but not, as far as we know, to their parents, implies that their parents actually visited George in hospital. This is in any case … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature
Tagged Belgium, Daniel Sturge Moore, Dr Albert Tebb, George Calderon, Henriette Sturge Moore, Inns of Court Regiment, Kittie Calderon, Louise Rosales, Manolo Ordoño de Rosales, Max Hastings, Nina Astley, Reginald Astley, Royal Horse Guards, Sir Roland James Corbet, The Blues, The Great War, Thomas Sturge Moore, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
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‘Alle Strassen münden in schwarze Verwesung’
Apparently it was in November 1914 that Edward Thomas, with the encouragement of Robert Frost, began to write modern poems. I have known the ‘anthology poems’ of Thomas since I was a teenager, but now I am reading all his … Continue reading
Total war comes closer
Today, 16 December 1914, at eight in the morning, three German battleships emerged from the fog off Scarborough and from a distance of less than half a mile shelled the town. Further up the coast at about the same time, … Continue reading →