Meg Elizabeth Atkins
Meg Elizabeth Atkins (died 2013) was a novelist and an active member of the North Western Homosexual Law Reform Committee (NWHLRC). Her early novel Gemini (which she later repudiated as an apprentice effort) has a gay theme. Later she specialised in crime fiction, with her series character DCI Sheldon.[1] She is perhaps best known for Palimpsest and Cruel as the Grave.[2]
Meg Atkins worked as a stable hand before moving to Manchester where she worked as a secretary, flitting between jobs to support her writing. Although heterosexual and married, she got involved in the North Western Committee because her best friend was a gay man:
- "It seemed to me a total injustice that simply because of your sexual inclinations you should be criminalised."[3]
Around 1966 she conducted a personal campaign around the industrial firms in the Trafford Park estate in Manchester, visiting firms' welfare officers, and asking them to support the campaign for decriminalisation.[4]
References
<references>
- ↑ Amiable Warriors Volume One, page 128 footnote.
- ↑ http://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/meg-elizabeth-atkins-rip.html
- ↑ Interviewed by Peter Scott-Presland, January 2012. Quoted in Amiable Warriors Volume One, page 128.
- ↑ Amiable Warriors Volume One, page 129–130.