Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
George Calderon, 1912
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon c.1901
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Captain of the 11
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Recent 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)
Category Archives: Personal commentary
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
Language issues again
The version of Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’ published in The Times (see my post of 21 September) seems to contain a misprint in line 11: ‘stanch’ instead of ‘staunch’ (‘to the end against odds uncounted’). Last week I was in the … 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
‘Connected with the Hamiltons’
A hundred years ago today George V, Queen Mary, the Prime Minister, and their entourages, visited Windmill Hill Camp. The Third Cavalry Division had now been officially formed and was being reviewed by the monarch. George Calderon described it as … Continue reading
Status
There are no letters from George to Kittie on 23 or 24 September 1914. At first this seems odd, since he had been writing to her every day. They were a Wednesday and a Thursday, and you would expect him … 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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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
‘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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A biographer bifurcates
The object of this blog has always been to present the why and how of George Calderon’s self-sacrifice in World War I; but to show these things by posting events and documents in a species of ‘real time’, exactly one hundred … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', biographies, biography, blogs, chronotopes, comments, George Calderon, haikus, horizontality, The Great War, verticality, 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
A correction?
It was perhaps a bit glib to say in the blog for 30 August that the B.E.F. ‘simply had to regroup’ etc. However, Arthur Moore in The Times was certainly wrong to describe the B.E.F. as a ‘broken army’, and Sir John … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Arthur Moore, British Expeditionary Force, comments, Seine, Sir John French, The Times
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The Peter Pan Factor
If ‘Adventure’ was essential to Calderon, as Kittie said, what part did this play in his so desperately wanting to get to the Front? Probably quite a lot, as my last quotation in ‘Thirty Quotes from George Calderon’ on this … Continue reading
Kittie again
The other ‘st’ word of the Edwardian period is ‘stout’, as in ‘stout fellows’ (used by soldiers of their comrades). It is described in dictionaries today as ‘arch.‘, and meant ‘dauntless’ — another word that today surely qualifies as ‘archaic’. … Continue reading
Kittie
It should be clear from my posts of 18 and 27 August that Kittie Calderon felt deeply frustrated by her husband’s ‘finality’, as she called it, about going to the Front when no-one was asking him to enlist at the … Continue reading
23 October 1914
Today George wrote to Kittie from Dunkirk. It was his first letter to her for six days. ‘Dearest Mrs P.,’ he began, ‘I haven’t written, because there was nothing very gay to say.’ (See my posts of 29 August, 1 … Continue reading →