Pat Metcalfe (7 Feb 1945 - 2 Dec 2016)

My wife Pat has died after a long illness from cancer aged 71.
Born in Dublin she came to England with her mother and three sisters in1947 and was educated at the Bar Covent School in York. She attended Harrogate Art College and retained much of her artistic & creative talents later in life.
We met, both as rebellious teenagers from middle class homes, both with dreams of changing the world together
Pat was active with me in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Committee of 100 peace movements in the early sixties and involved in the organisation of, and participation in, many of the civil disobedience demonstrations at that time.
We married when Pat was 18 and Pat devoted much of her early adult life to bringing up our children
A lifelong activist in the Labour Party, Pat served as a Labour Councillor on Lincolnshire County Council from 1983 until 2001, being Chair of Education for the period 1993 to 1997. She was a powerful advocate of early years provision and led the way in the building of several new Nursery schools, and the improvement of Council services for special education needs. She also played a significant role with her Labour colleagues in bringing the University of Lincoln to the City.
A great champion of comprehensive education and the sternest of critics of the commodification of education and the advent of market principles in the schools system.
Pat was passionate about the need to address inequality and injustice and a real champion for equality for women.
On the left of the Labour Party, she retained her loyalty to the party through the difficult years of pragmatic compromise.
Pat’s voluntary work included a spell in the Youth Service in the East End of London and was later a volunteer and then a Director of the Lincoln Branch of the Samaritans in the 1980’s and remained a strong supporter of the Samaritans movement thereafter.
She has given me unending support to throughout my public life and took great joy in later years with the arrival of our grandsons Daniel & Sean.
Pat is survived by me, her daughter Rachelle and son Paul and our grandchildren Daniel & Sean.
She will be greatly missed as the warm, generous, loving and brave woman that she was
Ric Metcalfe