Erin Pizzey

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Erin Pizzey bigraphy, stories - Activists

Erin Pizzey : biography

19 February 1939 –

Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey (née Carney, born 19 February 1939) is an English family care activist and a best-selling novelist. She became internationally famous for having started one of the firstHaven House in California was founded in 1964, seven years earlier than Pizzey’s shelter (see ). women’s refuges (called women’s shelters in the U.S.) in the modern world, Chiswick Women’s Aid, in 1971, the organisation known today as Refuge. Pizzey has been the subject of death threats and boycotts because of her statement that most domestic violence is reciprocal, and that women are equally as capable of violence as men.

Current work

Pizzey is still actively working to help victims of domestic violence. She is a patron of the charity Mankind Initiative.

Pizzey said in 2009 that she has "never been a feminist, because, having experienced my mother’s violence, I always knew that women can be as vicious and irresponsible as men".

Personal life

Pizzey married Jack Pizzey, then a naval lieutenant, when she was 20, first meeting in Hong Kong. They had two children. Pizzey lives in South London. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2000.

In 2000 Pizzey’s grandson Keita Craig, who had schizophrenia, committed suicide in a prison cell. Pizzey and his family campaigned against the coroner’s verdict of death by hanging and in 2001 a jury at a second inquest unanimously found that his death was contributed to by the neglect of prison staff. The case was the first ever to reach a finding of neglect in a suicide case.

Libel case

In 2009 Pizzey successfully sued Macmillan Publishers for libel over content in the Andrew Marr book A History of Modern Britain. The publication had falsely claimed she had once been part of the militant group The Angry Brigade that staged bomb attacks in the 1970s. The publisher also recalled and destroyed the offending version of the book, and republished it with the error removed. The link to the Angry Brigade was made in 2001, in an interview with The Guardian, in which the article states that she was "thrown out" of the feminist movement after threatening to inform police about a planned bombing by the Angry Brigade of the clothes shop Biba, "I said that if you go on with this – they were discussing bombing Biba [the legendary department store in Kensington] – I’m going to call the police in, because I really don’t believe in this."

Awards

  • International Order of Volunteers For Peace, Diploma Of Honour (Italy) 1981.
  • Nancy Astor Award for Journalism 1983.
  • World Congress of Victimology (San Francisco) 1987 – Distinguished Leadership Award.
  • St. Valentino Palm d’Oro International Award for Literature, 14 February 1994, Italy.

Early life

Pizzey was born in Tsingtao (now Qingdao), China in 1939. Her father was a diplomat and one of 17 children from a poor Irish family. The family moved to Shanghai and were captured by the invading Japanese Army in 1942 and exchanged for Japanese Prisoners of war.

Books

Nonfiction

  • Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear
  • Infernal Child (an early memoir)
  • Sluts’ Cookbook
  • Erin Pizzey Collects
  • Prone to violence ISBN 0-600-20551-7 Out of print
  • Wild Child
  • The Emotional Terrorist and The Violence-prone ISBN 0-88970-103-2

Fiction

  • The Watershed
  • In the Shadow of the Castle
  • The Pleasure Palace (in manuscript)
  • First Lady
  • Counsul General’s Daughter
  • The Snow Leopard of Shanghai
  • Other Lovers
  • Swimming with Dolphins
  • For the Love of a Stranger
  • Kisses
  • The Wicked World of Women
  • The Fame Game (work in progress)
  • The Lifestyle of an International Best selling Author