Anthony Tucker’s obituary for Patricia Lindop mentioned that she helped found the Society for Education in the Applications of Science. Thanks to Lord (Brian) Flowers and Patricia, I was a grateful beneficiary of a grant from the society in 1976, to study for a PhD on the Technologies of Political Control at Lancaster University. It wasn’t a smooth journey.
In April 1977, Special Branch raided the university and took my research, as I had inadvertently stumbled across aerials at the back of the university feeding into the US’s Echelon monitoring programme via Menwith Hill in north Yorkshire. Lawyers were needed to get it back.
In the 1980s I helped organise a visit to Manchester by the Pugwash founder Joseph Rotblat, accompanied by Patricia. One of the first student Pugwash groups in the UK was set up after a talk he gave to Umist students on the ethical responsibilities of scientists and engineers.
In 2004, the Pugwash vision helped inspire the creation of the School of Applied Global Ethics at the then Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett). Student Pugwash has a lively presence in Leeds to this day. Patricia’s vision, which called for higher ethical and moral values in science, lives on.
