Patricia Brake

Patricia Ann Kennedy (25 June 1942 – 28 May 2022), better known by her stage name Patricia Brake, was an English actress. She was best known for her role as Ingrid Fletcher, eldest daughter of Norman Stanley Fletcher, in the BBC sitcom Porridge and its sequel Going Straight.

Early life
Brake was born in Bath on 25 June 1942, the daughter of Victor Brake, a butcher, and Doreen Brake (née Wilkey). She was educated at the City of Bath Girls' School, and beginning at age 16, she trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, before joining the Salisbury Playhouse for two years, from 1960 to 1961. She moved then to Harrogate for a year, where she was a member of the White Rose Players.

Career
She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company where (among other roles) she played Hermia in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Hall, which also featured Judi Dench, Diana Rigg, Ian Richardson and Ian Holm. This was followed by a period in the West End. She began appearing on television in such series as Emergency – Ward 10, No Hiding Place and A Sharp Intake of Breath with David Jason, and also had film roles in My Lover, My Son (1970), The Optimists of Nine Elms (1973).

Brake played Ingrid Fletcher, the daughter of Norman Stanley Fletcher, in the BBC sitcom Porridge, and its sequel Going Straight. In 2015, she guest-starred in the BBC ongoing drama Casualty and in Midsomer Murders for ITV. Alongside her extensive body of work in West End theatres, she also appeared in UK soaps EastEnders and Coronation Street and with many British comic actors in numerous situation comedies and one-off plays and Love/Loss (2010).

Personal life
Brake married actor Robert McBain in 1966. She adopted his son from a previous marriage and they had two further children, they divorced in 1978. She married Michael Kennedy in 1997, gaining two stepchildren; he died in 2011. Brake died from cancer on 28 May 2022, aged 79.