Elizabeth Clark
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Elizabeth Thoms Clark (nee Carswell) was born 22 June 1918 near Newcastle. She wanted to be a writer and her first play for an adult audience was a school play, Cinderella in French. Based in Glasgow, she wrote poetry. Signal at Red, written 1964, was inspired by a phrase from her correspondent, John Cairns, and alluded both to him and her former lover, Ian Hamilton Finlay. The latter personified sexual love for her. Another poem, In Memoriam 1971, deals with another of her themes, death, by suicide, primarily incited by that of her sister, Joan's.
She wrote many playlets, the most successful being a revue, Nothing May Come Of It, which incorporated music and dance with the drama. She was never able to write a full-length play, her own explanation being given in a letter to her correspondent. Her correspondence with him is her magnum opus. She died in 1978.
