Captain of the 11
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon, 1912
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George Calderon c.1901
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
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Category Archives: Edwardian marriage
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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
‘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
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
Kittie
Most unusually, Kittie Calderon appears not to have gone to stay with friends at all since George embarked for Belgium on 6 October. We know this because the envelopes of George’s letters show that her housekeeper, Elizabeth Ellis, did not … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Acton Reynald, Antwerp, Belgium, Brinsop Court, British Expeditionary Force, Constance Sutton, Coote Hedley, Dixmude, Foxwold, John Masefield, Kittie Calderon, Mons, Nieuport, Nina Astley, Royal Horse Guards, Sturge Moore, The Blues, The Great War, VAD, World War I, Ypres, Yser
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4 October 1914
It was Sunday. Kittie probably went to church. She fervently believed in the power of prayer, and one can imagine what she prayed for. After lunch, they set out for Waterloo station. As George was coming out of 42 Well … Continue reading
3 October 1914
This morning, which was a Saturday, Kittie suddenly received a telegram from George to say that, in her words, ‘after all a lot of them were getting 24 hours leave and he would be home in a few hours’. When … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Coote Hedley, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, The Great War, William Hogsden, World War I
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1 October 1914
The first attempt at implementing the Schlieffen Plan for defeating France had failed and Moltke was replaced as chief of the German general staff by Falkenhayn. The Germans now began a second attempt. Their intention was to invade the rest … Continue reading
29 September 1914
It is clear from something Calderon wrote to his wife at the end of October that he did suffer from bouts of depression whilst he was an interpreter with the Blues. On this day, Tuesday 29 September, he wrote … Continue reading
26 September 1914
Today Kittie left Hampstead to stay with the Pyms at Foxwold, near Sevenoaks in Kent. It was a sign of her desperation, or of her need for comfort, or at least of her desire to be with people she loved … Continue reading
22 September 1914
On this day Kittie had lunch with Nina and Reginald Astley at the Royal Automobile Club and visited Nina’s son Sir Roland Corbet (Jim) in hospital at Grosvenor Gardens. He had a lot of visitors, so, as Kittie wrote George … Continue reading
The thickness of events…
When writing a biography, you can go for months in its subject’s life without hearing a word from them, as it were: no letters from them to anyone have survived, they are not recorded as having said anything to anyone … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Ballets Russes, Battle of the Aisne, Battle of the Marne, biographies, biography, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Lev Tolstoy, Michel Fokine, Nina Astley, Polovtsian Dances, Prince Igor, The Blues, The Great War, The Times, Windmill Hill Camp, World War I
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20 September 1914
Calderon had only been separated from Kittie three days, but was missing her. Yesterday was a Saturday. My servant wanted to go up to see his wife; I thought of my old ‘ooman with a tearful sigh, and told him … Continue reading
Kittie’s feelings
Kittie Calderon also wrote almost every day to George, but thirty years later she directed that her letters be burned after her death and only one has survived (from which I shall quote on 22 September). Nevertheless, after the War … Continue reading
A possible penny drops
Yesterday Calderon sent his wife three large closely written pages of letter, today he sends her four. He describes tents, ‘messing’, people, clothes, furniture, military equipment, horses, exercises, soldiers, officers, all in vivid detail and thick with names. His back … 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 →