Legions of her kind

How are these two items linked? Well, I have just finished reading Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and really enjoyed it. I had forgotten what a brilliant book it is and it brought back memories of the 1969 film. I was appreciating the writing for all sorts of reasons and then suddenly realised that the character Jean Brodie mirrors the life of my Great Aunt, pictured here in 1918 when she was in her 20s. 

They were part of what Spark describes as the 'war-bereaved spinsterhood' and about whom Virginia Nicholson wrote in her book Singled Out. They were the women who had been brought up with the expectation of being married and who found, after the First World War, the young men were no longer there. My Great Aunt said something very similar during conversations I had with her. She managed to carve out a life for herself as an independent lady, using her talent as a pianist to become a teacher. I don't think she was anywhere near as unconventional as Miss Jean Brodie however! 

The women who were left to pick up their lives after the War is a subject I am interested in and plan to write about, as I have found a few women in these circumstances in the various family histories I have followed. What happened to them differed according to the particular circumstances, but there is a similar thread running through their lives.