Pat Arrowsmith
(1930 - living) U.K.
Writer and peace activist
Her mother was Margaret Vera Arrowsmith (née Kingham) who died in 1976. Her father was George Ernest Arrowsmith who also died in 1976. Pat Arrowsmith was educated at Farringtons, Stover School, Cheltenham Ladies College, and Newham College, Cambridge, where she obtained a BA degree in history. She also went to the University of Ohio, and the University of Liverpool where she obtained a Certificate in Social Science.
From 1952 to 1953 she was a community organiser in Chicago. From 1953 to 1954 she was a cinema usher. In 1954 she was a social caseworker in the Family Service Unit in Liverpool. She was a childcare officer in 1955 and a nursing assistant in Deva Psychiatric Hospital from 1956 to 1957.
From 1958 to 1968 she was an organiser for the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, the Committee of 100, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
In 1962 Wendy Butlin became her lesbian partner and they stayed together until 1976. In 1971 she was a case worker for the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL, later called Liberty). She also worked on farms, as a waiter in cafes, as a temp in offices, as a sales agent, as a bartender, as a cleaner, and at a holiday camp. Also in 1971 she became an assistant editor for Amnesty International and kept the job until she retired in 1994.
In 1979 she was a parliamentary candidate as an Independent Socialist in Cardiff South East. She married Donald Gardner on 11th. August, 1979, but the marriage was dissolved on the same day.
Between 1958 and 1985 she was gaoled 11 times and was regarded as a political prisoner. Amnesty International twice adopted her as a Prisoner of Conscience. In 1964 she was awarded the Holloway Prison Green Arm band. In 1991 she was awarded the Americans Removing Injustice, Suppression and Exploitation (ARISE) peace prize.
Somewhere Like This is a novel about life in an all-female prison during the late 1960s. The novel is based on Arrowsmith in Holloway prison in London in which, during the same period, the butch-femme divide was apparently the order of the day.
Her work include:
- To Asia in Peace (1972)
- The Prisoner (1982)
- Jericho (1983)
- I Should Have Been a Hornby Train (1995)
- Many Are Called (1998)
- Drawing to Extintion (2000)
Excerpts from: Gabriele Griffin, Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay and Writing, Routledge, London, 2002
and from The Knitting Circle
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