Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
George Calderon, 1912
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Captain of the 11
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
George Calderon c.1901
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
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Category Archives: Edwardian character
‘Rich gift of anger’ is roused
Calderon awoke this morning, Saturday 17 October 1914, ‘in a large comfortable double-bedded room, looking through tall windows into a big town square.’ He had breakfast in bed and ‘stayed there till eleven’. This afternoon he wrote to Kittie from … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature
Tagged Belgium, Bruce Richmond, Captain Fitzgerald, Dr Albert Tebb, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Field, The Great War, Theodore Cook, Times Literary Supplement, World War I, Ypres
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Blood is spilt
Presumably B Squadron of the 7th Cavalry Brigade of the Blues also bivouacked last night near Lendelede. Reveille this morning, Tuesday 13 October 1914, was at four, and two hours later the squadron was moving south again, towards Gullegem, where … Continue reading
15 September 1914
On this day, Calderon was thrown from his horse at the riding school. He was quite a short man (five foot nine and a half), slightly built. The horse tossed him against a wall and his back was very badly … Continue reading
‘Who is George Calderon?’
Obviously, this is a question I am often asked. Sometimes it is even delivered with a kind of reproach, as to say: ‘Why are you writing this biography of somebody no-one knows, rather than of someone we all know, (a … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Charles Dickens, comments, Emily Dickinson, Franz Kafka, George Calderon, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Gregor Mendel, Katie Price, The Cherry Orchard, The Great War, Viktor Shklovsky, World War I
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Things
There is no documentation of what Calderon did between now and 15 September. Presumably, however, he had to set about equipping himself for active service. Officers had to buy some of their equipment, clothes, and food themselves; they even had … Continue reading
9 September 1914
On this day the B.E.F. began to cross the Marne. Momentously, an emissary from Moltke had arrived the day before and now persuaded both von Kluck and von Bülow that they must retreat northeastwards or be encircled by the Allies … Continue reading
Interpreter preparation
Calderon was fluent in French, had ‘learnt Flemish while shaving in the mornings’ (according to his composer friend Martin Shaw), and incredibly enough had once made a special study of Walloon dialects. His German was also competent. He had absolutely … Continue reading
‘The Godfather in War’
About now 1914, George Calderon went again to see his golfing acquaintance Coote Hedley. He turned up at his house at 9.30 in the evening, wearing his O.T.C. ‘reach-me-down’. However, as Hedley told Mrs Hedley, ‘even in that awful old … Continue reading
25 August 1914
On this day the first accounts of the Battle of Mons started appearing in British newspapers. The Times headed its main report ‘Namur Lost, German Success in Belgium’ and led off: ‘The battle is joined and has so far gone … Continue reading
Determined
Calderon’s approach to issues of the day (Russia, suffragism, unionism) was to study them in depth, analyse them, then decide what was the right course of action for him and stick to it through thick and thin. This was why … Continue reading
Training and War Games
Then we lived in an atmosphere of drill – I don’t only mean the drills etc and general training that he was going through, but at home: books on drill, books on everything, Morse codes, other codes, German military handbooks … Continue reading
3 August 1914
Of course the Adjutant turned him down – saying he was far too old. It must have been a bitter blow to Calderon, yet it is very unlikely that he showed it. He may have tried to reason, perhaps he … Continue reading
Calderonia – A Writer Goes to War
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not. —Wilfred Owen George Calderon was killed on 4 June 1915 at the murderous ‘Battle of Achi Baba’ on the Gallipoli Peninsula. When his death was officially confirmed in 1919 The … Continue reading
The TLS link
At four o’clock this afternoon, Monday 19 October 1914, George and other patients set off on a very slow train to their ‘Hospital base’ at Dunkirk. It may seem odd that he had told Kittie to contact Theodore Cook, editor … Continue reading →