Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
George Calderon c.1901
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)
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
George Calderon, 1912
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Captain of the 11
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920Recent Comments
- Jim D G Miles on From the diary of a writer-publisher: 28 Excellent entry, Dad. I like the escape room picture, of course, but the story about the Russian and the hole-in-the-wall is exceptional! (28/03/2024 at 9:58 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Short story: ‘Crox’ Thank you, dear anonymous Theo...it is so refreshing to hear the reaction of a Man of the People! Keep a good grip on those cords! 'Part II'?! The rest is secreted in lines (18/12/2023 at 10:33 PM)
- Theo on Short story: ‘Crox’ Delicious! "Are you being Served?" meets "Keeping up Appearances" via Calderotica. But Patrick, you cannot leave us dangling like that just before Christmas! One thing - c (18/12/2023 at 1:35 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Thank you, Damian, for sharing your problem with us. It's difficult to know what to prescribe. Perhaps try examining the facts of the story (e.g. there are not 6 medics in the (20/11/2023 at 9:44 AM)
- Damian Grant on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Patrick: I read your story 'Black Tie' on Monday, and knew immediately that it didn't work for me. There was something forced, factitious; something that didn't let the elemen (17/11/2023 at 2:26 PM)
Tag Archives: ‘real time’
Fast developments
Yesterday and the day before I did some entirely new research on correlating what documents we have about these few days of Kittie’s life. The result is, of course, still only an hypothesis, but I think it is a plausible … Continue reading
14 June 1915
Bell received Kittie’s letter this Monday morning and replied immediately in her rapid administrator writing: Dear Mrs Calderon, We telegraphed yesterday about Mr Calderon, at the request of the War Office. I do so very deeply sympathise with your anxiety … Continue reading
‘Nothing happened’
It is a very curious thing, but in none of the sources that I have used for understanding the full military context of George’s life on Gallipoli does the date 29 May feature. Nor did he write a letter to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 'real time', biography, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, General Kitchener, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, The Great War, World War I
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The bifurcator biffed
Faithful followers of this blog know that since last September I have been dogged by the rival claims of writing the blog and finishing the biography. The methods of each are so different that at times it’s felt schizophrenic — … Continue reading
The Arakan ‘mystery’
The other evening, I met a friend at a party who told me she had recently taken part in a reading of George’s ‘Romantic Comedy in One Act’, The Maharani of Arakan. I was amazed, as I had not heard of … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, Fort Brockhurst, Gallipoli, George Calderon, K.N. Das Gupta, Kittie Calderon, Margaret Mitchell, Rabindranath Tagore, Ronald Colman, The Albert Hall, The Coliseum, The Great War, The Maharani of Arakan, William Rothenstein, World War I
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Easter 1915
Today, 4 April 1915, was Easter Day. Kittie Calderon went to church, but we do not know if George did. At Steep, Hampshire, Edward Thomas wrote his poem ‘In Memoriam’: The flowers left thick at nightfall in the … Continue reading
‘Bifurcation’ and ‘chronotopia’ again
Those who have been on my journey since 30 July 1914/2014 will remember that six weeks into it (12 September) I wrote about the problem I was having of holding in my head the two activities of writing the blog … Continue reading
Time and the biographer
I have received a long and very interesting letter from John Dewey, author of the superb Mirror of the Soul: A Life of the Poet Fyodor Tyutchev (2010), commenting on my various posts over the last three months that touch on … Continue reading
‘Calderonia’: an update
New followers of the blog deserve an explanation, I feel, of why the last four posts have been purely military and what stage ‘Calderonia’ is at. The main object of the blog is to follow the last year of writer … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', biographies, biography, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, The Great War, World War I
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The dear departed
After writing the last sentence of George’s life in its strict earthly sense (I have two short chapters about his and Kittie’s afterlife still to write), I left the manuscript chapter for a day before coming back to revise it, as … Continue reading
The Scott syndrome
Two days ago, I happened to hear on Radio 3 Sarah Walker’s introduction to her ‘Choice’ on Essential Classics, which was Vaughan Williams’s Sinfonia Antartica (sic). As I recall it now, she said that the composer was commissioned to write the … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Battle of the Brickstacks, biographies, biography, comments, Constantinople, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, Kittie Calderon, Lieutenant-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Robert Falcon Scott, Sinfonia Antartica, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Vaughan Williams, World War I, Ypres
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Chronotopia cured, or ‘a biographer…writes’
In my post on 12 September, I described how writing the blog nearly every day whilst attempting to finish the book had induced a kind of schizophrenia: the blog tells the last year of George Calderon’s life day by day … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', biographies, biography, chronotopes, chronotopia, comments, George Calderon, The Great War, World War I
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Reactions
It has been suggested to me that the lack of Comments on the blog, after four months, is an indication of the ‘maturity’ (i.e. 60-plus) of its visitors and followers. You prefer to email me than bruit your reactions to … 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
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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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George Calderon: a tribute
As I have written before, the question everyone asks me is: ‘Who is George Calderon?’ Perhaps unconsciously, some people seem to intonate this as a rhetorical question implying: ‘Why are you spending years of your life writing about a person … Continue reading →