Pat Counsell was born on 16th March 1910 in Appleby, Westmoreland, one of four children. Her father was headmaster of the Appleby Boys Grammar School. 

 

In 1921 at the age of 11 she was sent away to boarding school at the Kendal High School for Girls and from there she got a place at Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall).

 

But first came two gap years in one of which she went to Breslaw in Germany as an au pair and became proficient in German. The other year she spent in Honfleur in France.

 

She went up to LMH late therefore at the age of 20 in 1930 to read Modern History. She graduated in 1933, winning the college essay prize with the subject “The Function of the State”.

 

Her first job – from 1933-38 – was with the Intelligence Department of the old Barclays Dominion Colonial and Overseas Bank.

 

But in November 1938 she began what was to be her 45 years at the Economist. She started as Private Secretary to that great editor, Geoffrey Crowther, and then joined the Editorial Staff when war broke out and wrote generally about home and colonial affairs. She was one of a tiny handful of people through and after the war without whom the modern public success of the paper would not exist. Week after week – on short rations, with dreadful transport and frequent bombings – a paper of distinction and authority was produced. After the war she was Book Reviews Editor (1951 – 70), as well as covering Health and Social Services issues. Every Thursday would be spent proof reading and she would always pick up some error or inconsistency. After her official retirement at the age of 60 she was retained to continue to cover Health affairs until 1983.

 

 In 1942 she married Alan, a psychiatrist, and, when in 1948 he was appointed Senior Consultant at Bexley Hospital, they moved to Blackheath where she lived for the rest of her life.

 

Alan died in 1985 so Pat was a widow for twenty years. In her retirement she became a member of the Greenwich Health Authority and a Governor of the Charlton Park Special School. For these voluntary activities she was awarded the MBE in 1981.

 

She grew old with no loss of her old sharpness. She was remarkably active to the last – visiting galleries, exhibitions and theatres. The birth of her first great grandchild, 3 weeks before she died, was another great pleasure in her final weeks.