FOUNDER MEMBER OF CND
Born Margaret Patricia Arrowsmith, into a fundamentalist Protestant family in Leamington Spa, she was always known as ‘Pat’.
Her mother, Margaret Kingham, had been brought up in the Plymouth Brethren movement, and her father, G.E.Arrowsmith, was a clergyman.
Margaret’s parents had been missionaries in China and had been murdered in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Their baby (Margaret) had been hidden under a bed and was rescued and then smuggled out of the country by a Chinese servant.
At the age of nine, Pat’s family moved to Torquay. During the Second World War, a German bomb fell in their garden and exploded. Luckily, the family were away. Pat put her hatred of bombs down to this incident.
When she was fourteen, Pat was expelled from school for refusing to follow the rules.
Subsequently, Pat was sent to Cheltenham Ladies’ College. She was very nearly expelled from there for ‘nipping off’ into town to celebrate VE Day.
Years later, when asked about her school record, Pat said her parents had taught her to listen to her conscience and ‘do what is right’. She said the petty school rules, “Were not right.”
A weary headteacher told her, “Pat, you’re past punishing.”
From there, she went to Newnham College, Cambridge to study History. As part of the US-UK Fulbright Scholar programme, Pat went to Ohio on a year-long student exchange.
Returning to England, she undertook another degree, this time in Social Science at Liverpool.
Her time at Cambridge had sparked an interest in political activism and Pat began to throw herself into causes that she believed in.
After leaving university, Pat worked as a community organiser in Chicago, sorting out race relations problems, and then became a social worker in Liverpool. She was appalled at the poverty she discovered there.
Pat then worked as a nursing assistant in a hospital in Chester.
However, she was sacked from this position in 1957, for organising an anti-nuclear weapons petition in the hospital.
That same year, Pat volunteered to be one of fifty people sailing from Japan to Christmas Island to try to stop the British H-bomb tests. However, the bomb had been detonated before the group arrived.
By now, Pat was heavily involved in the political group, ‘Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear Warfare’. She became the secretary and was helped organise in the Aldermaston march in 1958.
The route went from Trafalgar Square to Aldermaston in Berkshire, the base for the UK’s nuclear weapons – a walk of fifty miles. “We were expecting fifty people. We got eight thousand.”
It is estimated that around 5,000 people took part in the march, during which Pat was interviewed for television.
Soon afterwards, the Direct Action Committee became CND (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). Organised by philosopher Bertrand Russell and the Rev. Michael Stone, it was a non-violent mass resistance movement.
CND’s iconic logo was designed by artist Gerald Holtom.
Pat was one of the signatories of the ‘Committee of 100’ which set up CND in 1960. Another was Wendy Butlin, who was to become a close friend and then her partner.
Gay rights were another of Pat’s causes. She was thrilled to be the first person in ‘Who’s Who’ to admit to being gay.
Despite her protests being peaceful, Pat was arrested and put in prison.
In 1961, questions were asked in Parliament. Pat had gone on hunger strike in Gateside Prison and was consequently force-fed, with a rubber tube down her throat. MPs said it was identical to how Suffragettes were treated pre-First World War. Had the nation not learned anything?
Simultaneously, Amnesty International had just been founded, to protest about wrongful imprisonment around the world.
Pat became Amnesty’s first ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ in Britain (a status she would achieve a second time in the future).
When Pat was released from prison, Amnesty International gave her a job. She went on to work for them for 24 years.
In the 1966 General Election, Pat stood for the Radical Alliance in the Fulham constituency. This was held by the Labour Foreign Secretary, Michael Stewart. She was unsuccessful but tried again in the 1970 election (but again was not elected).
Meanwhile, in 1968, as part of her protests against the Vietnam War, Pat travelled to the Vietnam- Cambodia border.
Both countries were being indiscriminately bombed by the USA and Pat’s presence was a vain hope to get the campaign stopped.
By now, Pat was Vice-President of CND.
She supported trade union rights. CND recognized Pat’s links with industry from her time in Liverpool and sent her as their representative to high level meetings throughout Europe. Pat travelled to Genoa, Trieste, Piraeus and Venice.
Another of her causes was getting British troops out of Northern Ireland. They were sent in to sort out ‘The Troubles’ in August 1969.
Pat was frequently in prison (a total of eleven separate spells). Asked how she felt about her time inside, she said, “It’s a cinch after Cheltenham Ladies’ College.”
Pat used her time in prison wisely. She became an accomplished poet and published novelist.
In 1974, Pat was sentenced to 18 months in prison for handing out leaflets at an army base, encouraging soldiers to refuse to fight in Northern Ireland.
Pat went to Askham Grange Open Prison. Whilst there, she escaped. She just walked out.
She went straight to Hyde Park, where she spoke at an anti-fascist demonstration. Pat then linked up with gay and lesbian delegates, who marched to the radical bookshop Housmans, on Caledonian Road – and there they camped the night.
However, somebody told the Press Association, “There’s a fugitive at Housmans.” They in turn told the police.
When the police arrived to arrest her, the press were present in large numbers. She refused to leave the shop voluntarily, so the building was stormed. Pat was carried out down three flights of stairs, creating dramatic images in the next day’s newspapers.
The Court of Appeal dismissed her claim of wrongful arrest. The judge called her, “Mischievous and wicked”. Nevertheless, he reduced her sentence so she was freed – not returning to prison. She commented, “I shouldn’t have been in prison at all.”
Pat immediately took the UK to the European Commission of Human Rights, claiming she had been denied ‘Liberty and freedom of belief and expression’. The hearing took three years, but the Commission eventually found in her favour.
Pat’s parents were not political but her mother was anti-war, so she supported her activities. Her father was horrified by it all – particularly Pat’s sexual orientation.
He died in 1976. His will said that Pat could only inherit if she got married.
Consequently, in the same year, Pat married poet Donald Gardner. She filed for divorce one hour after the wedding ceremony.
The brief marriage enabled her to inherit her share of her father’s money, so she gave it all to charity, with a large chunk of it donated to Gay Pride week.
In the 1979 General Election, Pat stood for Parliament again – this time in the Cardiff South East constituency, held by Prime Minister James Callaghan. Her ticket was ‘Troops Out of Ireland’.
Callaghan won the seat comfortably. She heckled him constantly throughout his acceptance speech. The Prime Minister said that he had, “Conducted a duet in returning a vote of thanks – and that is not a particularly tuneful duet.”
When Pat’s turn came to speak, all the other candidates and the Returning Officer walked off the stage and out of the hall. However, the BBC still broadcast it.
Soon afterwards, she was back in prison again. This time, Pat went on hunger strike in support of the IRA members in H Block, in Long Kesh (The Maze) prison in Belfast.
Pat was amazed when Irish hunger-striker Bobby Sands wrote to her on a piece of toilet paper. She was stunned by the tone of jollity in his response – ‘Hi ya, Pat. How are ya?’ He thanked her for her support, wished her well and also suggested she abandon her protest.
Once released, Pat returned to direct action. When military bases were being built she took obstructive action. On one occasion, she even got into a cement mixer to stop it being used. She was at the Greenham Common protest in 1983.
In the 1980s, Pat appeared on the Radio Four programme ‘In the Psychiatrist’s Chair’, hosted by Anthony Clare. She came over as very single-minded and strong willed. She said, “I think I probably acquired a sense of the importance of practicing what you preach from an early age.”
Pat complained that she had been under surveillance from MI5 for decades. “It leaves one feeling rather suspicious.”
Pat felt she had some success. In the 1980s, British servicemen were told they would not be punished if they supported the anti-nuclear movement. She claimed this was due to her campaigning.
She also published her autobiography with the unusual title of, ‘I Should Have been a Hornby Train’.
When quizzed about the name of the book, she said at her birth, her parents told her two older brothers there was a nice surprise for them. When shown the baby, one of them said, “I wanted a Hornby Train.”
Pat lived in a modest council flat in North London. As the years went by, she started to suffer from depression and took to drink – although she recognised the damage this caused her and eventually gave up alcohol.
One of Pat’s final campaigns was protesting against the culling of pigeons in Trafalgar Square. ‘Animal Murder’ she called it. She clashed with the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. Pat countered the cull by spreading bird seed throughout the square.
She went on her last march in 2016.
When Pat died, she was still Vice-President of CND.
She donated all her papers to the LSE (London School of Economics).
Kate Hudson, the General Secretary of CND said, “Pat had a remarkable insight into what action would make a real difference and she would pursue that vigorously, with every fibre of her being. She was as different from an armchair philosopher as it’s possible to be. We will miss her very much.”
RIP – Radical, Intense, Politicised
