Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Captain of the 11
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George Calderon c.1901
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon, 1912Recent Comments
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Many, many thanks for reprising, Johnnie, for I know how busy you are. How serendipitous that you had just seen a 'live' performance of Murnau's b&w Sunrise! I gather from... (March 14, 2025 at 10:21 am)
- John Pym on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ March 8, 2025: Last evening, I watched a digital transfer of a black-and-white movie, made by an expatriate German in California nearly a hundred years ago, in a packed town... (March 10, 2025 at 4:36 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Your response here is (obviously) deeply informed... Thank you very much indeed. In comparing the coach ride to Simferopol in Heifitz's film with the chariot race in Ben-Hur... (March 5, 2025 at 10:01 am)
- John Pym on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Black-and-white camerawork was, I suspect, as natural to the director of The Lady with the Little Dog as breathing in and out or eating his breakfast. I doubt that he was... (February 28, 2025 at 11:01 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ We are deeply favoured and honoured to publish on Calderonia the eminent film critic John Pym's magnificent tribute to Heifitz's film The Lady with the Little Dog, perfectly... (February 24, 2025 at 10:56 am)
Tag Archives: Kittie Calderon
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
2 Comments
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
Leave a comment
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
Leave a comment
26 October 1914
Calderon found Brigadier-General ‘Black Jack’ Kavanagh last night about three miles from the front and presented his letter of recommendation from Kavanagh’s brigade major in Dunkirk. This afternoon he told Kittie the result: It is not certain that General K. … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Belgium, Brigadier-General Charles Kavanagh, comments, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Kruiseecke, Menin Road, military interpreters, Royal Horse Guards, Sir John French, Sir Richard Sutton, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
25 October 1914
George wrote to Kittie this morning from his billet at, presumably, Nieuwkerke: off this morning on motor trucks with the bully beef. I shall find Gen. Kavanagh tonight. I hope he’ll accept me. Perhaps I shall find the place taken … 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
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
Leave a comment
21 October 1914
At four o’clock this morning the hospital train arrived in Dunkirk. George could not name the town in his letter to Kittie of 23 October, but we know from his letter of 15th that this was his destination. He heads … Continue reading
‘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
Leave a comment
15 October 1914
On this day George wrote his next long letter to Kittie, ‘from a low estaminet by a muddy village wayside’. During the night Captain Fitzgerald of B Squadron had ‘dropped something heavy on his foot in the dark stables and … Continue reading
Pause and enigma
The Calderon quotations that feature in my preceding two posts come from a letter George wrote to Kittie today, 11 October 1914, which was a Sunday. This was now the pattern: every few days he would write her a long … Continue reading
8 October 1914
The transport ship ‘Huanchaco’ arrived at Zeebrugge at 5.30 this morning. Mid-morning George wrote to Kittie that the voyage had been ‘much like other sea voyages; meals, tobacco, chat and a little music’, But down below something between a menagerie … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged "Huanchaco", Antwerp, Belgium, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Zeebrugge
Leave a comment
The ‘off’
‘So as not to crowd’ Ludgershall station, as Calderon wrote his mother yesterday, at six o’clock that evening the Blues set off on horseback from Windmill Hill Camp across Salisbury Plain to another station (presumably Amesbury). The Life Guards had … 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 →