Category Archives: Heroism and Adventure

‘Edwardian bastards’ — a personal note

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Patrick Miles

Periodically I have to remind myself that in the 1950s I met plenty of Edwardians, in the sense of people whose character and values were formed in the longer Edwardian period of 1897-1916 and who were thought of as being … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Belgium, class, comments, Dardanelles, Edward VII, Edwardians, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Mesopotamia, Peter Hart, Robert Baden-Powell, Scout Association, The Great War, World War I, Ypres | 3 Comments

Intemperance and ‘Heroism’

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Patrick Miles

On 30 August 1920, Kittie received through the post the first draft of Laurence Binyon’s ode to George’s memory, see https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57345 . She was at Constance Sutton’s Tudor home in Herefordshire, Brinsop Court, and wrote to Binyon next day that she had … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Alice Hylton, Anton Chekhov, Battle of the Somme, biographies, biography, Brinsop Court, Cicely Binyon, comments, Constance Sutton, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Henry Newbolt, Heroism, iconography, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Lev Tolstoy, St John Hankin, Susan Chitty, temperance, The great man, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Thomas Carlyle, Thompson, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

The Nastiness Factor

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Patrick Miles

I have ‘worked with’ the Edwardians, so to speak, for a while now. I feel that if I were dropped into London society around 1905 I would know my bearings and could hold my own. There is much that, having … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Archie Ripley, biographies, biography, Cecil Rhodes, comments, Downy V. Green, Edward VII, Emmeline Pankhurst, Frederick Hollyer, George Bernard Shaw, George Calderon, H.E.D. Blakiston, Helen Ogston, Henry Newbolt, iconography, Juvenal, Kittie Calderon, Lord Cromer, Lord Curzon, Margaret Newbolt, nastiness, Percy Lubbock, righteousness, Robert Baden-Powell, Roy Hattersley, Susan Chitty, Trinity College Oxford, Vitai Lampada | 3 Comments

Guest post: John Pym, ‘A bit of fun with Calderon’

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Patrick Miles

On 7 May 2016 Patrick Miles wrote a post on George Calderon and William Caine’s pantomime The Brave Little Tailor in which he reproduced the cover of the published version (1923) and also Caine’s Preface – the first paragraph of … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged Andrew Lang, Anstey Guthrie, biographies, biography, Burglar Bill, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Charles Dickens, Cinderella: An Ibsen Pantomime, comments, Emmetts, F. Anstey, Foxwold, fun, George Calderon, Horace Pym, John Pym, Julian Pym, Kittie Calderon, The boy who fought for England, The Brave Little Tailor, Victorian humour, Violet Pym, William Caine | 5 Comments

Guest posts on ‘Calderonia’

Posted on August 12, 2016 by Patrick Miles

The next post, which will appear on Monday 15 August, will be by Mr John Pym, son of Jack Pym (1908-93) who featured as a child in my very first post of 30 July 1914 (30 July 2014) and was … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Archie Ripley, biographies, biography, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Edwardians, Foxwold, fun, George Calderon, guest posts, Jack Pym, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Victorians, Violet Pym | Leave a comment

‘Solved!’

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Patrick Miles

I am so relieved to have completed the re-hoover of my 165,000-word typescript in six working days — approximately a fifth of the time my disastrous ‘final’ hoover took (see ‘O, fallacem hominum spem!’ of 27 July). I must say, … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Afterword, biographies, biography, comments, Downton Abbey, George Calderon, Introduction, introductions, Kittie Calderon, readers, reading public, The Great War, World War I | Leave a comment

Somme: the ‘walking’ controversy

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Patrick Miles

When I read Harvey Pitcher’s Comment of 1 July about the Bishop of London’s address in Westminster Abbey commemorating the eve of the Battle of the Somme, I took it that the Bishop was quoting the order to WALK across … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Battle of the Somme, Bishop of London, Clare Hopkins, comments, common sense, Damian Grant, Dardanelles, deserters, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, General Henry Rawlinson, Harvey Pitcher, Hugh Sebag Montefiore, Mametz, Military Intelligence, Montauban, Richard Chartres, Stephen Tempest, The Great War, World War I, Ypres | 2 Comments

John Hamilton the Good/Great?

Posted on August 3, 2016 by Patrick Miles

At this time one hundred years ago, after the first anniversary of her husband’s disappearance at Gallipoli, Kittie Calderon decided it would be wise to channel her energies into a number of projects. One of these was to erect a memorial … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged causeway, Dardanelles, democracy, Dermot James, Donegal, Donegal Bay, Eric Gill, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Home Rule, Ireland, James Hamilton, John Hamilton, John Pakenham Hamilton, Kittie Calderon, landlordism, Mary Simson, memorial tablet, Orangemen, Potato Famine, Ribbonmen, St Andrews, St Ernan's, St Ernan's Island, The Great War, World War I | Leave a comment

The Somme: over to you

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Patrick Miles

It won’t, I think, surprise followers to hear that I know next to nothing about the Battle of the Somme compared with Ypres 1 and Gallipoli, which George Calderon fought at and which we covered from day to day in … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged attrition, Battle of the Somme, British Expeditionary Force, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, Hugh Sebag Montefiore, Imperial War Museum, Martin Middlebrook, Peter Hart, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I, Ypres | 1 Comment

The Somme: a memory

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Patrick Miles

In July 1970, whilst waiting to hear whether I had been awarded a grant to do a Ph.D. on Chekhov, I worked for six weeks in the male wing of a ‘mental hospital’ near my home. I place the words … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Battle of the Somme, Ben Hattersley, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, comments, horses, mental hospital, The Great War, war horses, workhouse, World War I | 5 Comments

Three women follow the Somme

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Patrick Miles

After Kittie Calderon had done all she could to establish George’s fate at Gallipoli on 4 June 1915, and accepted that she would live by the faith that he was in a Turkish prisoner of war camp, she suffered a … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Battle of the Somme, biographies, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Constance Astley, Constance Sutton, Dardanelles, Dick Sutton, Evey Pym, Foxwold, Gallipoli, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Givenchy, Jim Corbet, Kittie Calderon, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Sir Richard Sutton, Sir Roland James Corbet, Verdun, Violet Pym, Wimereux | Leave a comment

The Somme: Ends and Beginnings

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Patrick Miles

When did the Edwardian Age begin and end? Obviously, in the literal sense it spanned Edward VII’s reign, 1901-10. Cultural historians, however, have long extended it beyond those dates, because the nexus of attitudes and values that we call ‘Edwardianism’ began to … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged ANZAC, Battle of the Somme, British Expeditionary Force, comments, creeping barrage, Dardanelles, Dick Sutton, Edward VII, Edwardianism, Gallipoli, General Charles Munro, General Douglas Haig, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, Keith Murdoch, Peter Hart, Roy Hattersley, Samuel Hynes, Sir Richard Sutton, tanks, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I | 1 Comment

Is this George Calderon?

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Patrick Miles

Just as music gives people ‘ear-worms’, so biography brings us ‘phantom flies in amber’. As I explained in my posts of 5 January and 1 April 2015, over time the biographer becomes convinced s/he has seen things in print that … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged beetles, biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, ear-worms, flies in amber, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, photographs, The Blues, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I | Leave a comment

More Chekhovian than Anton

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Patrick Miles

For an extreme example of what George Calderon called Chekhov’s ‘disjunctive manner’, I recommend: George touched on aspects of the ‘disjunctive manner’ in the Introduction (1912) to his translations of The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard, but he had expressed it most … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, Christ in the Garden, comments, Florence Foster Jenkins, George Calderon, Grafton Street Gallery, Hugh Grant, Meryl Streep, Paul Gauguin, Post-Impressionists, Simon Helberg, Tahiti, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, Virginia Woolf | Leave a comment

A terrible anniversary

Posted on June 4, 2016 by Patrick Miles

George Calderon is presumed to have died just after noon at the Third Battle of Krithia on 4 June 1915. Obviously, I refer first-time blog-visitors to my posts for that and subsequent days last year, the actual centenary of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Brigadier-General Napier, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Helles, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Major G.B. Stoney, River Clyde, Stanley Spencer, Søren Kierkegaard, The Cherry Orchard, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, William Rothenstein, World War I | 5 Comments

The Brave Little Tailor

Posted on May 7, 2016 by Patrick Miles

7/5/16. The good news is that I have finished my fundamental revision of the biography. It can rest for a few weeks until I give it the final slow, close read. I turn now to writing the Introduction. These things … Continue reading →