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We Need New Stories is a series of 9 short new audio stories inspired by oral history interviews of Zimbabwean-born residents living in Nottingham.
Everyone featured in the oral histories were interviewed on camera in October 2022 by young people from the African diaspora. The resulting stories have been dramatised by playwright Zodwa Nyoni and recorded by actors.
You can view the original oral history interviews on each of the episode pages on Fifth Word's Website and in person at Nottingham Local Studies Library. The series also contains a bonus episode featuring an interview between playwright Zodwa Nyoni and director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour about the making of these audio stories.
All episodes are available for free on major listening platforms. Some stories contain sensitive subject matter including references to violence and racism.
This project has been supported by the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund, Nottingham Playhouse and The Space.
Welcome to Fifth Word's.
We Need New Stories.
Episode six, Ritah's Story.
Dear Ritah, written by
Zodwa Nyoni and directed
by Anastasia Osei-Kuffour.
This episode contains
references to racism.
This is you, 70 years
from where you are now.
A lot of this letter you won't
understand at five years old.
So many changes happen
between 1955 to 2022.
Right now you are playing
outside, covered in dirt.
You share your mother with
the English and Afrikaans
boys who've been sent to
study farming and piloting
in boarding schools, built
in the outskits of the
Rhodesian town we call home.
Gwelo is the pit stop
flights make to refuel
and stock up for the war.
It's probably best that
you don't know this.
You don't need to
learn fear so young.
Keep playing cowboys with
the white boys on weekends.
Keep speaking to God,
like our mother says.
You will need his strength
throughout your life.
Keep your innocence as
long as possible because
soon the differences
will become apparent.
When you start working, you
will discover that being
a black woman in Rhodesia
means you will get paid less.
Mom will fight her hardest to
get an education for you, but
even her efforts will still
offer you only two choices.
Teaching or nursing,
you will pick nursing
and become an auxiliary
nurse working in Bulawayo
with the most vulnerable
in Ingutsheni Hospital.
I'll warn you now.
Mental health hospitals
won't be easy.
The war will spit out
soldiers suffering from PTSD.
They will fill hospital
beds next to murderers.
You'll be expected to
clean after them while
the senior nurses sit
and do paperwork all day.
The general hospital
Mpilo won't be any easier.
The days will be long.
The nights will be
excruciating, but you believe
in providing good care.
Some of the senior
white doctors will
be less committed.
They will leave and
go to South Africa.
You will become stressed
and overworked, but help
will come all the way from
Nottingham in England.
Eric will arrive to be
the new church nurse.
He will cover the wards in St.
Luke one, and you will get
to stay in Saint Luke two.
You'll rarely see him
except on the days your
charge nurse is absent.
He will come in, give
injections, and then leave.
You won't even pay
attention to him until Mr.
Barker, your boss, has a
Christmas braai at his house.
You'll be polite.
But the interaction won't
be anything you need
to write home about.
The next time you
are back at work.
You will find pinned to
the notice, a handwritten
letter addressed to you.
You won't know what to
do, so you will slip it
into your handbag and
continue with your day.
When you do get back home and
finally open it, it'll read.
Dear Ritah, it was a pleasure
seeing you at the barbecue.
I wanted to ask, do
you eat Chinese food?
There is a restaurant in town,
I would like to take you.
What do you say?
Love Eric.
You have never
eaten Chinese food.
You will agree to go
but clearly state that
this is not a date.
This is a friendly
dinner between
colleagues, nothing more.
You and Eric will
go on several dates.
You will attend Christmas
parties, Easter gatherings,
dances, and go to the
cinema to watch King Kong.
On one date, you will
eat too much popcorn and
chocolate and drink so much
water that you get sick.
Eric will take care of you.
He's good like that.
He will love your
children like his own.
He will love on your
family and friends like
you grew up with them.
You will take him off
and to visit your sister
Findo and their children
at No.6 Phelandaba.
Even the most prominent
black freedom fighter Joshua
Nkomo will take to Eric.
Nkomo will warn us to be
careful after dark, the
rebels hunted white men.
Eric will return his
kindness by making care
packages of Christmas
pudding, cheese, and custard
for him and his comrades.
When the Ian Smith
regime imprisons them
in Wawa for 24 years.
You will travel together to
England to see where he comes
from and to meet his family.
They will welcome you.
On one visit to Nottingham,
you and Eric will be
sitting watching snooker.
His mind will drift
to the ever-growing
tensions back in Rhodesia.
Independence was close.
Everyone was anxious.
Eric wanted his
family to be safe.
He will tend to you and
ask, so matter of fact,
if we should get married.
You will say yes.
This will be in 1983.
The next day you will go to
the home office in London
to find out if you are
allowed to get married.
Permission will be granted and
you will book an appointment
at the registrar in Nottingham
by Shakespeare Street.
It'll take two years
to pick up your girls
and life in Rhodesia.
You arrive in Nottingham
on a bank holiday in 1985.
This is where I beg you to
remember our mother's words.
God will carry you throughout
your hardest moments in life.
The hospital administrator
at the city hospital
will dismiss your vast
nursing qualifications.
He will not believe that
you have the experience
of being a social worker
and an auxiliary nurse.
He will take you to
the cleaning department
instead of giving you
the job you apply for.
In the first house.
You will live in Saxondale.
You will be harassed by the
landlord always asking when
you will be moving out.
Stand firm.
You have the right to be here.
There will be good people too.
You will share Christmas
dinners with them in
the community center.
Eric's Aunt Cara in Shelford.
We'll teach the
girls how to bake.
Eric's ex-wife Brenda
will welcome you
and blend families.
You will gain two bonus
children, my dear.
Two little white boys
called Jeff and Trevor.
Some days you will
chuckle at how you have
mimicked your mother.
Rita, the white children
in England, were not like
the white children you
are growing up with now.
It'll not make sense to
you because all your life.
The white missionaries will
talk of the Bible respect
and honoring your parents,
but that only seems to be
instructions for Africans.
In England, the children
will ask for fags and call
you by your first name.
You will work in one care
home only for one night, and
then ask Eric to pick you up.
The culture shock will help
you scared you'll get arrested
for disciplining them.
Eventually you'll
start working in the
hospital as a nurse.
Unfortunately, you and
the other black nurses
will be worked to the
bone day and night.
Magline and Josephine will
become your close friends.
You'll all want to scream
and quit, but the hospital
will tell you in the climate
of Margaret Thatcher,
trade unions, and protest,
nurses do not strike.
You won't even be able
to change jobs because
those you left behind
will need your help.
HIV will claim so many lives.
You will work overtime to
send back money year after
year for medicines and food.
Eric will understand,
but also ask that we
don't forget the life we
are building in England.
Finding a balance between
where you are and where you've
come from will take a while.
You will see your girls
struggle with racism before
they find some peace in who
they are in this country.
You will contemplate returning
home, but over the decades,
Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe will
go from the jubilation of
independence to bleeding on
its knees for basic needs.
Your family will recount
tails traveling between cities
and towns just to get sugar.
They'll weigh the cost
of paracetamol to bread.
Zimbabwe will always be home,
but it'll feel different
over the years, especially
when your brothers and
sisters start to die.
I know it's hard to think
of them no longer existing
because right now, fishing
by the Zambezi River
every summer with them,
is everything to you.
For the things you lose,
you will gain plenty more.
You will spend Sundays
at car boot sales in
Redcliffe with Eric.
You'll watch the girls
grow up and get married.
You have friendships
that will age with you.
You will have your own home.
Eric's picture will hang pride
of place and we'll remember
him long after he's gone.
And then one day a film
crew will come knocking at
your door to ask you at 75
years old, what is the story
of your life right now?
You have no idea what is to
come or what you hope for,
but I hope this letter shows
you that you will have a full
and interesting life my dear.
Yours truly, Ritah.
Thank you for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please share with others.
All episodes in this series
are available on major
listening platforms and
on Fifth Word's website.
The next episode in this
series is Lawrence's
and Nyaradzai’s story.
As fate would have it.