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War Among Ladies
Miss Cullen finds herself in a dreadful predicament. Four years from retirement, she can no longer meet the educational standards expected nor control her pupils at Besley High School for girls. She knows that no other school will hire her now, but if she is sacked or doesn’t work until she’s 60, she will lose her pension. Her only hope is to hang on. But her poor exam results affect the standing of the whole school. Her colleagues embark on a campaign against her to save their own positions and she retaliates by involving the school inspector. Into this hostile environment comes Viola Kennedy, a young new teacher full of optimism and ideas, who instead gets caught up in the conspiracies and swirling resentments.
A quietly devastating novel about the realities of life for single working women in the 1920s and the systems that failed them.
A quietly devastating novel about the realities of life for single working women in the 1920s and the systems that failed them.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
7 people are currently reading
225 people want to read
About the author
Eleanor Scott
42 books11 followersEleanor Scott (1892~1965) was born Helen Madeline Leys in Middlesex, the daughter of John Kirkwood Leys, barrister and novelist. Her early education was provided solely by her mother, Ellen, who prepared both of her daughters for going on to Oxford. After the Great War, Helen Leys became a teacher, later rising to the position of Principal of an Oxford teacher training college. Her first short story to appear in print was ‘The Room’, which appeared in The Cornhill Magazine in October 1923, credited to H. M. Leys. In 1928, the first work bearing the pen name Eleanor Scott appeared: the controversial novel War Among Ladies, which was published by Ernest Benn... Her final novel, Puss in the Corner... was published in November 1934.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 11, 2022
Brilliantly written, but quite devastating.
November 8, 2022
Masterfully written, vicious jibes and backhands, little hurt filled paper cuts of nastiness that do more damage to the mind, and where might you find all this political infighting and torturous mental affliction and bullying? Not in House of Commons (though am sure there’s plenty of that) no in an all girls school!!! Yes this is set back just after the war with a whole host of characters who are both intriguing and yet also grim, malicious and just plain nasty… we follow the story of a weak and vulnerable teacher who’s failings are not being able to control a handful of unruly, temperamental girls on the verge of becoming that dreaded thing… Teenagers!!! We observe the weak being attacked by the strong and how really the blame is not just from on high and filtering down but by indecision and mismanagement from the top of the school which then carries on down. I do find the idea of someone who was once good becomes shunned and bullied due to her failing to understand modern teaching I found that my whole sympathy lay with her than the others even though I feel the author did not intend that. The romance felt a bit staged and too opportune for me and that the whole thing didn’t turn into murder which I did feel it would have done better to have done. It’s good but very sharp and vicious.
July 21, 2024
This novel focused on the inner workings of a British girls' high school in the inner war period. One of the two main characters was Miss Cullen, a spinster who'd been teaching for 25 years and who is 4 years from retirement. She is incompetent, pathetic, and disrespected. To make matters worse, only four of Miss Cullen's students passed their end of term exams, putting all of the teachers' positions at the school at risk and further endangering the school's ability to remain open. If she quits now, she'll forfeit her pension. She simply cannot afford to quit and retire and no one will be willing to hire a woman at her age and with her skill set.
Miss Cullen's colleagues turn against her and begin to ostracize her. Miss Cullen takes a drastic step to take her job, one that will ultimately affect all of her colleagues. Enter our second main character, newly graduated Miss Kennedy, still full of ideals and not affected by the cynicism that befalls more seasoned teachers.
This book magnified the politics, gossip, and social climbing that is present in many school environments. In addition to highlighting the unreal expectations placed upon teachers outside of their "working hours," and the systems that failed them, this book also covers the bleakness of being single and lonely and the the devastating point at which some teachers lose their idealism and the ramifications that follow.
Miss Cullen's colleagues turn against her and begin to ostracize her. Miss Cullen takes a drastic step to take her job, one that will ultimately affect all of her colleagues. Enter our second main character, newly graduated Miss Kennedy, still full of ideals and not affected by the cynicism that befalls more seasoned teachers.
This book magnified the politics, gossip, and social climbing that is present in many school environments. In addition to highlighting the unreal expectations placed upon teachers outside of their "working hours," and the systems that failed them, this book also covers the bleakness of being single and lonely and the the devastating point at which some teachers lose their idealism and the ramifications that follow.
Want to read
October 19, 2022I learned of this book via this review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2022/...
March 24, 2024
To be honest, I feel like the dedication is the best part of this book:
`TO THE MAN IN THE TRAIN
between Newton Abbott and Exeter, who declared to the Author that all teachers had:
Too much pay
Too little work, and
Too much leisure,
this book, respectfully and without permission, is
DEDICATED'
Not because the rest of the book is bad, but because the dedication is so good. The rest of the book is about a failing girls' school in 1928 England, and the trials facing the teachers, whose lives are circumscribed by some pretty rough working conditions. The fixed salary scale for teachers means that if a senior teacher is fired or laid off, she cannot find a new job, since potential employers are going to hire newer, cheaper teachers instead; and if she is fired or laid off before her pension vests, then she loses decades of 10% salary contributions to the pot. Combine those pressures with a school exams system that may shut down an entire school if the students fail; an incompetent French mistress whose students cannot pass their French exams; and a marking scheme that says any student who fails French cannot pass the exam at all, regardless of her scores in all the other subjects, and you have a perfet storm of scorn and resentment among all the teachers whose careers, pensions, and lives are at risk.
I find that the internal tensions, scheming, and intrigue described in this book are just as exciting as court drama in any work of high fantasy. It's not so much the stakes and setting that I like about political drama as all the machinations and alliances and factions; and you can get those in just about any setting. So those bits were great.
The problem is that this book was clearly not given much editing. There are internal inconsistencies, plot events which are not set up properly, and other plot events which seem to have vastly more substantial importance than they are given. For example, at one point a teacher has a mental breakdown from the strain of all the pressures surrounding the future of the school. This is designed to catalyze some of the teachers into more concerted action, but it would be more effective if, for example, the specific circumstances of the breaking-down teacher had been set up earlier--or indeed if her character had been included in the earlier events of the book at all. As it was, I didn't recognize her name, and her specific pathetic circumstances that rendered her situation so pitiable were related in the same exposition dump as the description of her break-down.
In another event, two teachers arrange to go away for a weekend biking trip, which--when the weekend comes--has somehow turned into a walking trip. This minor inconsistency turns out to be have been motivated by a need for transportation to arise, requirng one of the teachers to be rescued by a love interest. The rescue wouldn't have worked if she'd had a bike. But surely it would have been a simple enough matter to flip back to the previous chapter where she's planning the trip and replace 'biking' with 'hiking'? Evidently not.
Oh, and speaking of the love interest: in a moment of vulnerability and openness he reveals himself to be an anarchist escaped from prison and hiding from the authorities under an assumed name. Goodness gracious me, how juicy! In a world where a teacher getting a ride home from a man is a source of SCANDAL, what on earth will come of such a secret?!!?
Well, nothing, actually. We never hear about it again.
See what I mean? Some editing was needed here.
`TO THE MAN IN THE TRAIN
between Newton Abbott and Exeter, who declared to the Author that all teachers had:
Too much pay
Too little work, and
Too much leisure,
this book, respectfully and without permission, is
DEDICATED'
Not because the rest of the book is bad, but because the dedication is so good. The rest of the book is about a failing girls' school in 1928 England, and the trials facing the teachers, whose lives are circumscribed by some pretty rough working conditions. The fixed salary scale for teachers means that if a senior teacher is fired or laid off, she cannot find a new job, since potential employers are going to hire newer, cheaper teachers instead; and if she is fired or laid off before her pension vests, then she loses decades of 10% salary contributions to the pot. Combine those pressures with a school exams system that may shut down an entire school if the students fail; an incompetent French mistress whose students cannot pass their French exams; and a marking scheme that says any student who fails French cannot pass the exam at all, regardless of her scores in all the other subjects, and you have a perfet storm of scorn and resentment among all the teachers whose careers, pensions, and lives are at risk.
I find that the internal tensions, scheming, and intrigue described in this book are just as exciting as court drama in any work of high fantasy. It's not so much the stakes and setting that I like about political drama as all the machinations and alliances and factions; and you can get those in just about any setting. So those bits were great.
The problem is that this book was clearly not given much editing. There are internal inconsistencies, plot events which are not set up properly, and other plot events which seem to have vastly more substantial importance than they are given. For example, at one point a teacher has a mental breakdown from the strain of all the pressures surrounding the future of the school. This is designed to catalyze some of the teachers into more concerted action, but it would be more effective if, for example, the specific circumstances of the breaking-down teacher had been set up earlier--or indeed if her character had been included in the earlier events of the book at all. As it was, I didn't recognize her name, and her specific pathetic circumstances that rendered her situation so pitiable were related in the same exposition dump as the description of her break-down.
In another event, two teachers arrange to go away for a weekend biking trip, which--when the weekend comes--has somehow turned into a walking trip. This minor inconsistency turns out to be have been motivated by a need for transportation to arise, requirng one of the teachers to be rescued by a love interest. The rescue wouldn't have worked if she'd had a bike. But surely it would have been a simple enough matter to flip back to the previous chapter where she's planning the trip and replace 'biking' with 'hiking'? Evidently not.
Oh, and speaking of the love interest: in a moment of vulnerability and openness he reveals himself to be an anarchist escaped from prison and hiding from the authorities under an assumed name. Goodness gracious me, how juicy! In a world where a teacher getting a ride home from a man is a source of SCANDAL, what on earth will come of such a secret?!!?
Well, nothing, actually. We never hear about it again.
See what I mean? Some editing was needed here.
September 29, 2023
First published in 1928 and recently reissued by the British Library as part of their excellent Women Writers series, War Among Ladies is my second contribution to Nora’s (@pearjelly_) #SpinsterSeptember reading event. It’s a fascinating addition to the BL’s line-up, written at a time when life for single women, even those with good educations, could be terribly harsh and cruel.
The novel is set at Besley High School for girls, an environment awash with suspicion, gossip and thinly veiled hatred – in the staffroom, at least. The toxic culture at Besley has been shaped by various factors, mostly driven by the educational system at the time, and Scott does a brilliant job of laying these bare as her story unfolds.
Central to the novel is the rather hopeless French teacher, Miss Cullen, a spinster in her mid-fifties, four years away from retirement. Despite an Oxford education and thirty years of experience under her belt, Miss Cullen is out of touch with the evolving demands of teaching in the 1920s. Consequently, her pupils’ exam results are dreadful, with only four girls passing French in the current school year. Moreover, Miss Cullen’s incompetence is dragging down the school’s overall performance to the same miserable level as her own. That’s because the exam system in place requires pupils to pass all key subjects to secure an overall pass; in other words, if a pupil fails French (or Maths or English, for that matter), they fail the whole exam.
Everyone on the staff knows Miss Cullen is to blame for the school’s woeful exam record, especially when the Head, Miss Barr (an old-fashioned disciplinarian), runs through Besley’s departmental performance during a meeting with all the mistresses. So, with exam results on the slide and the threat of school inspections and potential closure on the horizon, the other teachers can barely disguise their hostility towards Miss Cullen, shunning her at every opportunity and, in some quarters, actively plotting her demise. If only she would resign, then the school might be saved…
Miss Lexington and Miss Parry, entering together, had each given her [Miss Cullen] one glance—a glance of such cold contempt from the one, of such virulent fury from the other—that she felt momentarily appalled—appalled as one might be who has laughingly cast friends adrift in a boat and then realises that it is sinking. She did not like to stay in the same room as those two who had eyed her so; and then the pointed silence of the others, their gloomy eyes and marked coldness, distressed her … She must escape from them somehow. (p. 142)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023...
The novel is set at Besley High School for girls, an environment awash with suspicion, gossip and thinly veiled hatred – in the staffroom, at least. The toxic culture at Besley has been shaped by various factors, mostly driven by the educational system at the time, and Scott does a brilliant job of laying these bare as her story unfolds.
Central to the novel is the rather hopeless French teacher, Miss Cullen, a spinster in her mid-fifties, four years away from retirement. Despite an Oxford education and thirty years of experience under her belt, Miss Cullen is out of touch with the evolving demands of teaching in the 1920s. Consequently, her pupils’ exam results are dreadful, with only four girls passing French in the current school year. Moreover, Miss Cullen’s incompetence is dragging down the school’s overall performance to the same miserable level as her own. That’s because the exam system in place requires pupils to pass all key subjects to secure an overall pass; in other words, if a pupil fails French (or Maths or English, for that matter), they fail the whole exam.
Everyone on the staff knows Miss Cullen is to blame for the school’s woeful exam record, especially when the Head, Miss Barr (an old-fashioned disciplinarian), runs through Besley’s departmental performance during a meeting with all the mistresses. So, with exam results on the slide and the threat of school inspections and potential closure on the horizon, the other teachers can barely disguise their hostility towards Miss Cullen, shunning her at every opportunity and, in some quarters, actively plotting her demise. If only she would resign, then the school might be saved…
Miss Lexington and Miss Parry, entering together, had each given her [Miss Cullen] one glance—a glance of such cold contempt from the one, of such virulent fury from the other—that she felt momentarily appalled—appalled as one might be who has laughingly cast friends adrift in a boat and then realises that it is sinking. She did not like to stay in the same room as those two who had eyed her so; and then the pointed silence of the others, their gloomy eyes and marked coldness, distressed her … She must escape from them somehow. (p. 142)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2023...
January 1, 2024
'War Among Ladies' shines a light on life as a schoolteacher in the 1920s, highlighting not only the issues of the educational system but of those who work within it. In particular the issues faced by a generation of older women in keeping up with updated teaching methods, deteriorating vigour and fear of losing their job before reaching pensionable age.
(At this time only unmarried women were able to be in the teaching profession as the marriage bar wasn't lifted in teaching until 1944. Also, during the 1920's teachers would only qualify for pensions if they had been employed for not less than 30yrs in recognised or qualifying service. Pension funds were paramount for women with no financial means of their own to lead a dignified life in old age.)
This book is a scathing social commentary filled with twists and turns as scheming staff room politics ensue, judgements are made, fingers are pointed, all of which make for a sombre yet interesting read. (Not too dissimilar to the themes explored in "Tension" by E.M.Delafield, another book within the British Library Women Writers Series). At the end you are left questioning is it the finger pointing amongst the women themselves or the social system that created such a working environment or a combination of the two!
(At this time only unmarried women were able to be in the teaching profession as the marriage bar wasn't lifted in teaching until 1944. Also, during the 1920's teachers would only qualify for pensions if they had been employed for not less than 30yrs in recognised or qualifying service. Pension funds were paramount for women with no financial means of their own to lead a dignified life in old age.)
This book is a scathing social commentary filled with twists and turns as scheming staff room politics ensue, judgements are made, fingers are pointed, all of which make for a sombre yet interesting read. (Not too dissimilar to the themes explored in "Tension" by E.M.Delafield, another book within the British Library Women Writers Series). At the end you are left questioning is it the finger pointing amongst the women themselves or the social system that created such a working environment or a combination of the two!
January 9, 2023
despite the setting - an all girls school! filled with spinsters of various ages from young and annoying to old and crusty! - this never descends into the kind of lazy caricatures that we see so often in books about gaggles of women, largely because whilst none of the women are perfect, your sympathies lie at all times with all the teachers serving out their time, even when you actively dislike them. Yes, there is a fight, and yes, it gets downright catty at times, but this novel is never anything less than, as another reviewer put it, quietly devastating. the enemy is the system they are all caught in, a system that gives them no respite or mercy until they've done their full 30 years, and they all have to stake their claim to the meagre rewards on offer or sink into a poverty-stricken old age. all of this delivered by writing so sharply witty and sarcastic that the book is never less than hugely entertaining. a total gem.
October 28, 2024
3.5 stars. I have mixed feelings about this... When I'm reading I usually want to immerse myself in a different world. However, I thought this might be interesting bc it deals with being a teacher after WW I and the injustice etc. I found it a bit unpleasant to read and there was too much negativity and bitch fight which seems due to the circumstances of the time but if you are a teacher you might find some situations familiar and simply depressing. I just wasn't aware of this before reading. This is of course not the fault of the book because it is very well written and also shows that there have been major changes since 1928... On the other hand I would have wished for less hostility and perhaps more unity against the system and wondering if it was really such a fight among female teachers...
December 26, 2023
Depressing polemic on the financially precarious lives of teachers in the 1920s. True, they had a raw deal professionally but their own petty squabbles and snobberies made their lives so much worse. The idea that marrying a romantic rogue was the best way to escape a dreary career was most depressing of all, for married women had if anything fewer legal rights than single ones. They had to obey and follow their husbands, hoping that their husbands could provide for them as they were not permitted to work to support themselves. Sorry to say I did not enjoy this novel.
June 10, 2023
Very good. Only older women will probably recognise the type of school portrayed (so accurately) in this novel but all readers will be able to identify with the insecurities of the teachers. Despite progress in society regarding pensions and support for later life, I'm confident that sadly many women still feel the desperation of Miss Cullen as their life with paid work ends.
My only criticism of this novel is the rather unconvincing and rushed romance between Viola and Hyde.
My only criticism of this novel is the rather unconvincing and rushed romance between Viola and Hyde.
June 24, 2024
If you can look past the 1920s slang then some parts of this book still resonate today.
I'm sure a lot of teachers would recognise the stresses these fictional teachers are under.
There are even moments that will hit with anyone who is stuck in a full time job they hate.
I'm sure a lot of teachers would recognise the stresses these fictional teachers are under.
There are even moments that will hit with anyone who is stuck in a full time job they hate.
October 24, 2025
Secondary schools should read this and see that very little has changed in terms of pressures from the inspectors, exam pressures and colleagues who don't want to do duty. Really well observed and perceptive. Very honest about how people sometimes treat each other.
June 30, 2024
DNF. The book is good enough, but I found it unpleasant. The author seems to think that women are an exotic sub-species of humanity with quirks and characteristics not found in "normal" humans, i.e., men. The whole book is about the bitchiness of teachers at a state (public) girls' school—how they try to undermine each other, how they plot incessantly. It got to a point where I just couldn't take it any more.
April 17, 2023
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2023...
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2023...
November 6, 2023
I finished this book in record time because in parallel, in my work life, I was going through a similar situation, and I was turning the pages with bated breath to see what would happen next in this dispute with no apparent winners, exacerbated by the conditions of womanhood in 1930s England. Set in a school on the verge of collapse, the lives of the different female characters intertwine and lead to a more and more desperate finale. The characters so beautifully and dramatically sketched by the author, herself a teacher, a spinster, a lady of great education (another Oxford alumna in the days of no degrees) catch life and live and hang on to their more and more desperate existence and desperate ends. The more dramatic of the novels in this beautifully curated series, the novel is a subtle psychological study in female psyche. A gem.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews