Against the Odds

Rita Hart is a great person to talk to. Just being in her presence makes you smile. You wouldn’t be able to tell it by her appearance, but she has quite a story to tell. You could say she was brought up in a Christian home, but that would not be completely true. Sadly the only person who was not a Christian in her immediate family was her father. He had served in the Navy and was unfortunately a mental wreck. He would go out almost every night, get drunk out of his mind, and when he came home poor Rita as a child had to witness this example of a father. She was often beaten for no reason.

A chaotic childhood

At a young age, Rita sought guidance from the rest of her family on how to live her life in the midst of her father’s wild behaviour. Rita says that the faith of her grandparents helped her a lot, but her only wish was to have had a normal family life. At least she feels she had good guidance on what not to do when it came to raising her own children.
As a schoolgirl she didn’t find life easy, mainly because of the stresses at home, leaving her feeling nervous in school.

Growing up in the Second World War was also was a challenge. Rita, along with her sister, had to be evacuated to an unknown family in Derbyshire. Her mother stipulated that they should be kept together, but that was not to be, as they ended up in different houses, though not too far away from one another. Rita recalls it was a sad day when all the children were at the station saying goodbye to their families, waving until out of sight. Soon after, Rita learned that her house had been bombed but that fortunately everyone was safe.

God became real

God became more real in Rita’s life when at the age of eleven she used to regularly attend a youth club held in a Pentecostal Church in Leigh-on-Sea where she played the piano for them.

Some years later, when Rita was in her teens, her Granddad’s words of advice on finding a boyfriend came back to her. He advised her to find and marry someone who would go to church with her. So with this goal in Rita’s heart, bearing in mind the happy, long marriage exemplified by her Christian grandparents, Rita found and eventually married John Hart.

Bittersweet

John and Rita first met at the ‘Kursel’ in Southend on the dance floor! One might say that it was his excellent dance skills that drew her attention to him, but she admits that would be stretching the truth a little! She also admits that neither of them were very good dancers, but there was something about him that drew her to go and dance with John. Later on in their relationship things became difficult for Rita as her father was not a bit interested in her getting married and didn’t want any part in it. He wasn’t even going to come to the wedding to support his own daughter, who he never referred to as by her Christian name, making her very depressed.

The confrontation

One day John came into the house to sort the whole situation out. He walked in and called out for Rita’s father who was at that moment in his quarters and appeared to be sleeping. John knocked on the door and called out for him again because he could sense that her father just did not want to talk to him. Instead of calling a third time, he barged in and started talking about the situation. Rita was upstairs listening attentively while clutching the banister as her palms grew sweaty. She eventually went down and joined John in confronting him and the outcome was that her father decided to banish her from his house, where the rest of the family still lived. Rita was meant to stay here with her sister during the three weeks before her marriage. This didn’t stop her from sneaking back in however! With the help of her mother and other family members, and owing to the fact that her room was upstairs, she managed to sneak back into her house and live there without her father knowing!

A close shave

However, one fateful day her grandmother was in the room with her and decided to light the paraffin oil heater, but in doing so dropped the heavy lid on the floor. The loud thud was heard below by her father who raced up to find out what the noise was. Her grandmother had to explain that she had dropped something while moving some furniture and that she didn’t need any help. After her father had gone, Rita took a deep breath. “My heart has never beaten so fast!” She laughed when she recalled the incident!

Against the odds

Rita Hart is someone who had the odds stacked against her but wanted to persevere and go the right way – God’s way. A lot can be learned from Rita’s attitude to life, even as a child. This is what led to keep in heart the goal to marry someone who would go to church with her, so that she could remain true to the Word of God in her life. Even now she says she would like to visit people in third world countries. She likes to do her bit to help. Even though Rita has been through a lot she is grateful for the examples of faith she has had in her life. Without these God-centred influences, she doesn’t know what she would be like today. She says that if she could leave the world a piece of advice, it would be ‘put God first in your life, be helpful to people and strive to be a good listener, as you never know what others might have had to experience in their lives’.