Born of Anglo-Indian and Indian background, Patricia Pengilley migrated to Australia as a young adult. She has since returned to India on many occasions, having trekked the Himalayas, sailed on the Ganges and participated in an expedition by camel.
Pengilley has worked as a teacher of the deaf and became founder and director of the HEAR Service of the Victorian Deaf Society. Granted a Churchill Fellowship to survey rehabilitation techniques overseas, she has also written a text in the field, By Word of Mouth: A Rehabilitation Course in Better Hearing, Lip Reading and Speech Conversation, Australian Triple Approach (1968), which has been republished many times.
