My mother, Patricia Pank, who has died aged 83, personified generosity and compassion, qualities she brought to a 50-year career working for the NHS, and a lifetime of activism and helping others.
She supported many causes, driven by her strong sense of social justice, much of it from her distinctive home in north London, which, as well as being the base for a thriving family, was a hub for activism and politics, arts and music, parties and friendship.
Born in South Africa, to Dorothy (nee Corder), a housewife, and Ralph Middleton, who worked for the North British Insurance Company, Patricia grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). She attended the girls’ high school in Salisbury (now Harare) before training as a nurse at Salisbury general hospital. In 1959, aged 21, she travelled to Britain to study nursing in Oxford and London, and in 1962 married Philip Pank, an architect, whom she had met at a party in Fingringhoe, Essex, earlier that year. Together, they built a modern home in Kentish Town, north London.
Patricia had practised as a midwife at John Radcliffe infirmary, Oxford, from 1960 to 1961, and then worked in London as a nurse at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, and as a bank nurse at University College hospital, before later undertaking clinical tutor training/work at University College London Hospitals and Middlesex hospital (1976-88).
In the 60s she helped the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child (now Gingerbread) find empty houses in north London to turn into homes for single mothers. Later, she would open up her own home to single mums, and to refugees. Over the years, people from Algeria, Iran, Afghanistan and the Philippines lived with her, as well as students and travellers from around the world.
Tricia’s non-clinical posts included teaching nursing at UCH (1976-80) and as senior tutor at UCH and Great Ormond Street hospital (1983-86). After taking a four-year, part-time degree in philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, she taught and carried out research at King’s College London from 1998 until her retirement in 2003.
Her immense clinical expertise and experience did not go to waste. She provided care and training to the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (now Freedom from Torture), and was a trustee of the Helen Bamber Foundation and of the Baobab Therapeutic Centre for Young Survivors in Exile. She also became a governor of UCLH and a member of its clinical governance group, and sat on the Royal Marsden hospital research ethics committee. For 11 years she was a justice of the peace at Highbury magistrates court, and she became a lay member of the Bar Council, working for equal access to the bar.
Tricia was a dedicated campaigner for the Labour party, hosting meetings and fundraisers for the local branch at her home, which also served as a rehearsal space for musicians and, most recently, the Woven Gold refugee choir.
Her husband, Philip, died in 1991. Tricia is survived by her children, Sarah, Will, Anna and me, and seven grandchildren.
