Pat Arrowsmith (born March 2, 1930) is a British author[1] and peace campaigner.[2]
Arrowsmith was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, read history at the University of Cambridge, and then read Social Science at the University of Liverpool and at Ohio University as a US-UK Fulbright Scholar. She is a co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
She has served eleven prison sentences for her political activities. In 1961 she was the subject of parliamentary questions after she was force-fed while on hunger strike in Gateside prison.[3]
She stood against the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan, in his constituency of Cardiff South-East in the General election of 1979. She carried on sustained heckling during Callaghan's customary acceptance speech on re-election as an MP. With his typically avuncular nature Callaghan remarked that it was the first time he had "conducted a duet in returning a vote of thanks, and that it was not a particularly tuneful duet" .[4] He then invited Arrowsmith to take the platform, which she did, while he and his supporters left the hall en masse.