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more frequently I am disappointed by the way I have let so many interesting and precious people and things, slip past me when my attention was elsewhere; fascinating snippets of history, tasty bits of family gossip, telling examples of individual eccentricity, certain people who just faded out of my life. I did not pursue those questions about the aunts when they came tome then, in my twenties, but I finally did so some years later, after reading a social history of the interwar years.
    A ‘maiden aunt’ is defined in several dictionaries as ‘an aunt who is single and no longer young’, but widowed aunts are not referred to in this way. The term suggests a particular sort of redundant virginity, conjures unflattering stereotypes of lonely ‘dried-up’ spinsters, nosey old neighbours, harpies and harridans, all loaded with a fear and dislike of women who have lived their lives without men. In early Victorian times the maiden aunt was a favourite elderly relative who would look after the children at the drop of a hat and could be relied on for her patience, her loveable nature, endless stories, secret treats and her sense of fun. But for many women born between 1885 and 1905, the term had a different meaning and would become a fate for which they were criticised and reviled. They had grown up believing that marriage was their birthright, but the Great War changed all that. The results of the 1921 census revealed that there were almost two million unmarried women for whom the prospect of a husband and children had been destroyed. They were unflatteringly referred to as ‘the surplus two million’. Many of these women made a virtue of necessity by successfully pursuing jobs and careers they might otherwise not have considered. Some started their own businesses, a significant number became writers, artists or political activists. Many simply became beloved maiden aunts, but all these women were seen as a problem, and discussions in parliament and in the newspapers of the day revealed a widespread disgust and fear of the impact of a surplus of women who would never marry. The
Daily Mail
even said ‘these superfluous women are a disaster to the human race.’ 1 As individuals, many of these women were loved and admired, but collectively their existence seemed to threaten the status quo.
    What can it have been like in those years for women, many of whom lacked the education or the background needed to earn their own living, whose families couldn’t or wouldn’t supportthem? Many were mourning the loss of lovers or fiancés, while others mourned the loss of those they would never meet, the families they would never have. How did it feel to read those caustic denouncements that blamed them for their own misfortune? For many, the life of a single woman between the wars was a desperate and frequently fruitless search for a husband, or for acceptable, ladylike, paid work, to avoid the daily struggle to overcome the hardships of poverty and exclusion. Maiden aunts and other single women in abundance found ways to live, scrimping, saving, often going without food to maintain appearances. One maiden aunt who was in her thirties at the end of the war, turned her status into a business when her adoring nieces and nephews outgrew her care. Gertrude McLean, the seventh of nine children, established Universal Aunts, an agency to match respectable, capable women with families who lacked the services and pleasures of maiden aunts. By the early 30s, McLean, assisted by Emily Faulder, who had been her first applicant, had found suitable, pleasant and dignified employment for thousands of women who lacked professional or other qualifications. The aunts collected children from schools and stations, shopped, organised parties, picked up garments from dressmakers, acted as partners for a hand of bridge and much more. They brought joy to their charges, companionship and support to their employers, and had