in the 1930s. She visited the Soviet Union in 1932 as part of a Fabian Society group and expressed some misgivings about the direction of Soviet society. An active anti-fascist, Mitchison travelled to Austria, where she undertook the risky task of smuggling documents and left-wing refugees out of the country. She stood unsuccessfully as a Labour Party candidate for the Scottish Universities in 1935, at a time when universities were still allowed to elect MPs. Eventually, as her political candidacy and her pro-Left writings had failed, she gradually became disenchanted with the Left. At this time she became politically attracted to Scottish Nationalism and increasingly wrote on specifically Scottish issues and themes. Her name was on George Orwell's list of people prepared in March 1949 for the Information Research Department set up at the Foreign Office by the Labour government, who were considered to have pro-communist leanings and so be inappropriate to write for the IRD. Mitchison's advocacy continued in other ways. She became a spokeswoman for the island communities of Scotland. She was a friend of Seretse Khama and an advisor to the Bakgatla tribe of Botswana. Her keen interest in Scotland's problems led to her serving on Argyll County Council and the Highlands and Islands Development Council. Meanwhile she was a serious botanist, gardener and practical farmer. She became a Labour representative on Argyll County Council from 1945 to 1966. She served on the Highland Panel in 1947–1965 and the Highlands and Islands Development Consultative Council in 1966–1976. Mitchison was a Life Fellow of the Eugenics Society. She was also a vocal campaigner for women's rights, advocating birth control. Her own lack of knowledge of birth control (as stated in her memoirs) led to an interest in the causes of birth control and abortion. She was on the founding council of North Kensington Women's Welfare Centre in London in 1924. Today, she is best known for her advocacy of feminism and her tackling of then-taboo subjects in her writing. She was a principal investor in the Partisan Coffee House, a meeting place for the New Left off Soho Square, which functioned in 1958–1962. Mitchison was present and supporting a Stop the Seventy Tour rally, aiming to halt the apartheid South African rugby and cricket tours of Britain in December 1969. Later life Dick predeceased her in 1970, but Naomi remained active as a writer well into her nineties.