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| Even at 75, protester Pat still
takes to the streets |
Veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Pat Arrowsmith
remains an inspiration to radicals everywhere, writes Tom Foot
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Arrested in Cardiff while standing against James Callaghan
in the 1979 General Election for breaking a bye-law of speaking
in a precinct.
A picket at Aldermaston in 1958. The sign says ‘We
want to see the director’ – Sir William Penney
Arrested at gunpoint at Udorn airbase in Thailand while
protesting against the US bombing of north Vietnam, March
1968
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WHEN a young man tried to assault an elderly woman in a park
this summer, he got a little more than he bargained for.
Pat Arrowsmith, veteran campaigner for nuclear disarmament, lesbian
icon, poet and painter, wasn’t going to allow herself to be
attacked without a fight.
Twice she has been adopted by Amnesty International as a Prisoner
of Conscience – a lifetime career of civil disobedience has
seen her in and out of prison countless times.
“I kicked and punched him and he ran off,” says the 75
year-old, who lives in Muswell Hill. “The bastard got my wallet.
I got £1000 compensation for it and donated it to Amnesty
International.”
Now in her 70th decade, Arrowsmith remains an inspiration to peace
campaigners across the world. So who inspires her? “I don’t
really have any,” she says, “but sometimes people say
I’m their’s.”
She is never short of a muse herself, however and she finds inspiration
everyday, from her attempted rape to graffiti on the walls. Arrowsmith
wrote a poem reflecting on the attack: “Don’t ponder much,
on what occurred – just continue on my way.” The poem,
Assault, joins a collection of other pieces called Going On which
has just been published.
“My last collection was called Writing to Extinction,”
she says. “Then I didn’t die and had written more poems.
That’s why it’s called Going On.”
Arrowsmith read some of her favourites at the Housmans bookshop
in King’s Cross recently. The left-wing book shop which has
just celebrated its 60th birthday, holds special memories for Arrowsmith,
who took refuge there after escaping from Askham Grange prison in
Yorkshire.
“I escaped through a building window and hitched back to Housmans,”
she says.
“I went with friends and supporters to the Head quarters of
the National Council for Civil Liberties (now Liberty), which was
holding a public meeting for my release.”
But when she arrived, Patricia Hewitt, then NCCL director –
currently Secretary of State for Health – wouldn’t let
her in. “It was a meeting campaigning for my release. But Hewitt
showed me the door! I don’t think she wanted any bad publicity.”
Arrowsmith took sanctuary in Housmans, but the police caught up
with her and took her to Holloway Prison.
“Friends sat on me to make the police’s life harder, but
eventually they got me out,” she recalls.
Arrowsmith has been at the forefront of the campaign against nuclear
weapons. She was there at the start of CND – helping to design
its famous emblem, and organised the marches from Trafalgar Square
to Aldermaston – the headquarters of the UK’s Atomic Weapons
Establishment – in the 1950s.
Still campaigning she returned to Aldermaston, in Berkshire, for
a sit down protest in June last year against the Trident intercontinental
ballistic missile programme.
In March, she again took a train to Aldermaston, the only place
in Britain where nuclear bombs are manufactured, and blocked builders
from entering the site. She was arrested and was supposed to appear
in Newbury crown court. But after she didn’t appear the courts
didn’t bother to chase her.
She oncce stood as a Parliamentary candidate as an Independent Socialist
in Cardiff against James Callaghan.
More recently, Arrowsmith, who once lived in Haverstock Hill and
worked part time in the Fortune Green cemetery as a gardener for
Camden Council, has also been involved in Camden politics. She joined
the campaign against The Corporation of London’s plans to force
swimmers to pay for a swim in Hampstead Ponds.
“I resented having to make that place political,” she
says “It is a place of recreation. We shouldn’t have to
waste energy campaigning on the ponds – there are more important
things to worry about. I resented having to focus my agitation on
it.”
By the age of 75, many radicals have put their banners away. You
would have thought after so many years of prison food and public
speaking, Arrowsmith would be looking forward to the easy life in
Muswell Hill.
But only last month she was sleeping rough outside Downing Street
protesting against the war in Iraq. Her diary is filled with speeches
for Stop the War Coalition and in August she was arrested for sitting
on rail tracks to prevent nuclear waste being shunted about on the
North London line.
She says: “There’s no point sitting back and burning out
– I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I have my free
bus pass now and I’m going to use it.”
“There are no rules to writing,” she insists. “I
don’t go in for routine. If I see something that makes me think
I just write a poem about it. I saw this wonderful graffiti in the
road the other day, or there was the old broken moped in the park.
Of course, most of my work is layered. They are not just soppy poems
about flowers and love. They usually have a hidden message about
society or against the war.”
Unlike many ageing Lefties does she not despair with the present
or lament that the political golden age of the 1970s, has passed.
Arrowsmith believes radical movements are growing in strength and
laughs off the idea that the downturn will continue. She says: “There
is a great unity today between groups. You go on a march and there
are representatives from Stop the War, Respect, the Greens, Palestine
Campaign all helping each other. That didn’t used to happen.
There is a lot to get excited by.”
• Going On by Pat Arrowsmith is published by Hearing Eye, at
£3.00, available from 99 Torriano Ave, NW5 2RX |
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Angelino's finest are put to the test
WE came across Angelino Wines, sandwiched between two colourful and
aggressively self-promoting Australian wine sellers, at Islington’s
London Wine Event at the end of October.
Its owner is Farrell Anglin, whose imagination was caught by a lecture
on the history of wine making at Southgate College.
FULL STORY
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