Captain of the 11
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)
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon, 1912
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George Calderon c.1901
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
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
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George CalderonRecent 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
Nuts and bolts
By and large, I believe readers don’t want to hear about the nuts and bolts of writing biography (the ‘difficulties’), they want to read the biography. However, readers of this blog may be interested in a typical example… I know … Continue reading
14 November 1914
Kittie must have brought newspapers and new books into hospital for George, because today at ‘Far End’, Kingham, Chipping Norton, the novelist Anne Douglas Sedgwick was writing him a long letter thanking him for one from him that congratulated her … Continue reading
Kittie’s therapy
‘So as to help him pass the day in hospital’, Kittie taught George to knit. He ‘at once grasped the possibilities offered by plain and pearl’ and started to knit a muffler, which became ‘a network of intricate patterns that … Continue reading
‘He downright cried’
One of the many symptoms of acute stress disorder is ‘hyperarousal’, e.g. irritability and outbursts of anger. About now, whilst Kittie was with him, Calderon learned that Colonel Wilson had been killed on 6 November: George was in hospital when … Continue reading
Remembrance
I wrote a piece for the parish magazine of my home town, Sandwich in Kent, about Laurence Binyon’s visit there in 1921 (see www.stclementschurchsandwich.org.uk and follow links to ‘The Signal’), and I’ve just received my copy. The issue, for November, … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged George Calderon, The Great War, World War I
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The ‘Godfather in War’ visits
As Kittie put it, Calderon’s ‘great wish on getting back was to see Colonel Hedley and triumph over him’. (For Coote Hedley, see my post of 26 August.) The reason for this was that, in Kittie’s words, ‘on some occasion … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alexis de Gunzburg, Alexis Gunzberg, Belgium, Brigadier-General Charles Kavanagh, Colonel Gordon Wilson, Coote Hedley, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zillebeke, Zwarteleen
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5 November 1914
Today a long advertisement appeared in the Times Literary Supplement for Chapman & Hall’s ‘Latest List’. Top of the column was ‘The Final Word on Tolstoy, the Man: REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY. By His Son, Count Ilya Tolstoy’. The book had been … Continue reading
‘Mrs Alice’s eye-refreshing flowers’
Word was spreading in literary London and beyond that George was back, wounded, from Ypres. One of his closest friends when the Rothensteins lived in Hampstead was the painter William Rothenstein (1872-1945). The Rothenstein family now lived at Far Oakridge, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian English
Tagged Alice Rothenstein, Far Oakridge, Sussex Lodge Hospital, William Rothenstein, Ypres
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Nurse Katharine
Several people have asked me why ‘Kittie’ is not spelt with a ‘-y’. The answer is that the spelling ‘Kitty’ is reserved for private, more intimate use, for example between Kittie and George, Kittie and Nina (‘Dinah’) Corbet, Kittie and … Continue reading
1 November 1914
Since Kittie recalled receiving a telegram ‘one Sunday morning’ saying ‘Home wounded, shot through ankle’, it probably was on 1 November 1914 that George arrived at Sussex Lodge Hospital, 27 Sussex Place, Regent’s Park, which is now the home of … Continue reading
Complex, yes
Today, Saturday 31 October 1914, George Calderon was presumably travelling in a hospital train to one of the Channel ports. The day is a black hole in his biography, but as Kittie remembered it he arrived in London on 1 … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Battle of Gheluvelt, Belgium, biography, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Michael Caines, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, Siegfried Sassoon, The Blues, The Great War, TLS blog, World War I, Ypres
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30 October 1914
Percy Lubbock says that Calderon was writing today from ‘a casualty clearing station’, but George himself calls it ‘the hospital’. Whichever it was, it presumably had X-ray facilities, because in the X-ray below the damage looks sufficiently fresh for the … Continue reading
29 October 1914: ‘toothache in the ankle’
The German bombardment began at 5.30 a.m. and was concentrated on the Gheluvelt crossroads on the Menin Road (see map below). Falkenhayn’s plan was that having pushed the salient further in here, on 30th a general attack would be unleashed … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Army Group Fabeck, Belgium, Erich von Falkenhayn, General Fabeck, George Calderon, Gheluvelt Crossroads, Hollebeke, Ian F.W. Beckett, Kittie Calderon, Klein Zillebeke, Major-General Thompson Capper, map, Menin Road, Messines, military interpreters, Percy Lubbock, Royal Horse Guards, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zandvoorde
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28 October 1914
George wrote his long letter to Kittie today at supper time. There had been two developments during the day that directly led to attaining his object of becoming combatant, but he left them until the end of his letter. During … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure
Tagged Belgium, Colonel Gordon Wilson, Dixmude, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Nieuport, Royal Horse Guards, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, Surgeon Major Pares, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Yser
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‘Stellenbosched’
For those who know only of Stellenbosch’s fine wines or distinguished university, I should explain that after the Second Boer War the British Army turned it into a verb meaning to park someone military in a job where their incompetence … Continue reading
Zillebeke Churchyard Cemetery
This week I have received and read Jerry Murland’s 2010 book Aristocrats Go to War: Uncovering the Zillebeke Churchyard Cemetery. Nothing, I think, could evoke so strongly the character and ethos of the men George Calderon was with at Ypres in … Continue reading →