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respectable, mainly sepia or tinted head-and-shoulders shots, nothing at all suggestive, but Vi’s family was shocked when she arrived flaunting her postcards. They curbed their disapproval, however, when she handed over all the money she had earned from them, to pay the outstanding bills.
    The war had brought social change. When Edward was home on leave he and Vi went out on the town, dining and dancing at the Ritz and the Café Royal. Although she was still at Selfridges, she had graduated from gloves to ladies wear and had a faultless sense of style and fashion. Edward showered her with gifts and promises.
    When the war ended, the prospects of marriage for Gladys and Lily were remote. According to Alice, their sister-in-law, both girls were rather plain – although I take her opinions with a pinch of salt. Gladys, who loved children and badly wanted her own, hadto accept that her dream of a husband and family was likely to remain just a dream. There were simply not enough men to go round, and many of those who had returned from the war were severely disabled, or traumatised or both. Both girls were serious and hardworking and Gladys found a position in an accountancy practice where she later became the secretary to the senior partner, and to his successor when he retired. She remained with the practice all her working life, and retired in her late fifties, despite urgings by her employers to stay on for as long as she wished.
    Lily had proved excellent at maths and had begun work in a bank. But as her father and brothers began to develop the building business they recognised her head for figures and for business generally, and made her a partner. She managed the office and the accounts until she too retired in her late fifties. The inky fingers that I had noticed on that first visit were a mark of her devotion to the business, which often had her working all week in the office and on weekends at the dining-room table. I never discovered whether or not the two younger sisters had men or women friends or lovers. They seem to have lived quiet, respectable, perhaps dull, but satisfying lives. Their brothers, unlike many of their contemporaries, were mindful of their sisters’ situation. All three were married and eventually had homes of their own, and urged their father to remake his will in favour of their sisters. Thus they were assured of a roof over their heads for the rest of their lives. Olive, Gladys and Lily never lived anywhere else. Only Vi had broken loose and taken a risk on a different life.
    Vi had expected that the end of the war would mean the start of a new life. She had met a few of Edward’s friends, and expected to move fairly easily into his wider social circle. But the prospect of his family still loomed large. The war was long over and she was well into her twenties but Edward still prevaricated. It was difficult, he told her; his parents needed more time. Even so Vi remained convinced that she had a foothold on a ladder that would ensure her a place in London’s high society. Perhaps Edward’s originalintentions had been good, or perhaps he had been lying to her from the start, but early in 1922 a friend pointed out a notice in the social pages of
The Times
announcing Edward’s engagement to the daughter of a baronet. Vi’s world collapsed around her.
    Alice, my grandmother, a strict devotee of the Baptist chapel, always disliked the aunts, especially Vi whom she described as ‘fast’, and whenever her name was mentioned Nana pursed her lips in self-righteous disapproval, straightened her shoulders and sighed as if in despair. Nana had been a domestic servant – a ‘tweenie’ – before she married Len; so came from a slightly lower level of working class than her sisters-in-law. She insisted that Vi must have known that she would only have been introduced to those of Edward’s friends who, like him, were involved with ‘loose women’.