George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
George Calderon c.1901
Captain of the 11
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
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)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon, 1912
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)Recent 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: Ypres
The Press tries to help
Now that George was officially ‘missing’, Kittie could draw on George’s and her contacts in the world of print to publicise the fact and appeal nationwide for any information about him. She was extremely energetic about this. She first wrote … Continue reading
Another Calderon signs up
At Edmonton, Alberta, on this day in 1915, George’s eldest brother, the architect Alfred Merigon Calderon (q.v.), applied to join the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force — as their youngest brother, Frederick Elwyn, had on 23 September 1914. It is not … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alfred Merigon Calderon, Canada, Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, census, Clara Calderon, Edmonton Regiment, Fred Calderon, Frederick Calderon, George Calderon, Middlesex Rifles, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, The Great War, World War I, Ypres, Zillebeke
Leave a comment
11 June 1915
Sometime today, which was a Friday, Kittie received the following telegram: O.H.M.S. I certify that this telegram is sent on the service of the WAR OFFICE [Signature] 2nd Lieut. Calderon Oxford Light Infantry attached K.O.S. Borderers was wounded June 4th. … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Belgium, Flanders, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Hampstead, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, KOSB, Nina Astley, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, telegrams, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, War Office, Well Walk, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
22 May 1915
Today Kittie moved from Foxwold, the Pyms’ home in the Weald of Kent, to Emmetts, about a mile away. We know this from the fact that the Visitors Book at Foxwold was maintained meticulously. Emmetts was the home of Violet … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alexandria, Berlin, Bulgaria, Catherine Lubbock, Constantinople, Dardanelles, Emmetts, Foxwold, Fred Calderon, Frederic Lubbock, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Lev Tolstoy, Malta, R.M.S. 'Orsova', Serbia, The Great War, Violet Pym, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
Gallipoli: The situation
To Hamilton’s request for ‘two fresh divisions organized as a corps’ (see my post of 6 May), Kitchener replied on 10 May that he could send him only one. This was the 52nd (Lowland) Division, which would take almost a … Continue reading
13 May 1915
If Kittie was still at Devonport, when she opened her curtains in the hotel this morning she would have seen that the Orsova had vanished. At midnight last night, in George’s words of three days later, the huge ship ‘suddenly went … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage
Tagged Belgium, Brockhurst, Constance Sutton, Dardanelles, Devonport, Fort Brockhurst, Gallipoli, George Calderon, H.M.S. 'Goliath', Kittie Calderon, Morto Bay, R.M.S. 'Orsova', Second Battle of Ypres, Sir Richard Sutton, The Great War, The Mediterranean Sea, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
Kittie’s story
As I have said before, none of George and Kittie’s letters to each other written whilst he was at Fort Brockhurst has survived (there is an envelope addressed to her by George and postmarked Gosport 3 May, but no letter … Continue reading
St George’s Day 1915
This morning the weather in the Aegean was fine and clear. Admiral de Robeck therefore ordered the smaller craft in the harbour of Mudros to move to Tenedos — the first step towards assembling the fleet for landings at Gallipoli … Continue reading
The note darkens
I did not notice it when I got to this point in writing the chapter in my biography, but the day-by-day ‘real time’ of the blog has brought it home to me: the note has definitely darkened by this date … Continue reading
Two separate biographies
As I have explained on several occasions, apart from his machine gun course on Hayling Island we know nothing specific about George’s training as a lieutenant with the 9th Battalion Ox and Bucks at Fort Brockhurst from the middle of … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Battle of Neuve Chapelle, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, Fort Brockhurst, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Helles, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Training, trench warfare, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
The return to Tahiti
Calderon arrived in London from Tahiti on 30 October 1906 and started writing his book about the island in November 1907. However, he soon gave it up to concentrate on his plays The Fountain and Cromwell: Mall o’Monks. Meanwhile, as Kittie put … 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
Leave a comment
They all fall down
Suddenly, in early February 1915, the inmates of Fort Brockhurst were struck by influenza. Kittie says the ‘whole regiment’ went down, but presumably this is figurative. Certainly hundreds were affected, so perhaps the whole 9th (Service) Battalion was garrisoned in … Continue reading
(Commentary)
Staggered by flu, I did not have the energy to add any comments to my post of George’s New Year letter to William Rothenstein; but I will offer a few points now. William Rothenstein is an extremely interesting figure. He … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Augustus John, comments, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Harold Nicolson, Il'ia Tolstoi, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Percy Lubbock, Tahiti, The Great War, Vita Sackville-West, William Rothenstein, World War I, Ypres
2 Comments
The next week
There is no documentary evidence for what George did between 17 and 23 December 1914, when he and Kittie left for what she described as ‘a delightful Christmas at Foxwold [Brasted, Kent] with the Pyms’. But we can be pretty … Continue reading
A friend’s published tribute
As I explained in my post of 25 June, after George’s death was officially accepted in the spring of 1919 Kittie invited his friends to write their memoirs of him, which of course included tributes, but none of these was … Continue reading →