Features / Breakfast with Bristol24/7
Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Ruth Pitter
Ruth Pitter could hardly believe that she was being awarded an MBE.
The theatre producer and voluntary sector titan thought the letter was junk mail when it arrived in her mailbox in early December. “It’s something you just don’t expect,” she laughs.
We meet at FED on Gloucester Road on an icy morning, a luxurious brunch spot with all the avocados, mushrooms and poached eggs you could ever want. Instead, Ruth opts for a Rooibos tea and an opulent lemon and raspberry polenta cake, giggling her way through forkfuls of it.
is needed now More than ever
She’s not new to this area, having been born at Southmead Hospital and going to a school, working in two banks and a Joe’s Bakery, attending church and most recently joining a gym – all on the popular indie high street.
But back to the MBE (a subject we drift back to throughout our breakfast). “You hear on the news about other people receiving the award and you think, how brilliant it is what they’re doing,” says Ruth. “And then you get a letter and you just think: ‘This is surreal.’ I was just flummoxed, I didn’t see it coming.”
The first person she told was her 93-year-old dad. “I wanted to check with him how he felt about it because I did have reservations about the whole title and empire,” says Ruth.
Her father moved to England from Kingston, Jamaica, as part of the Windrush generation, meeting her mother on the boat. They went on to have seven children, of which Ruth is the second eldest. “They grafted hard,” Ruth laughs.
“I’ve never been against these awards, but suddenly when something like that lands on your doorstep and you think it’s got a title that I’m not sure about it. But my dad was so overwhelmed and emotional, I thought I couldn’t deprive him of that.
Ruth Pitter’s MBE comes after years of her tireless contributions to around 1,000 community organisations in Bristol – illustration: Lucy J Turner
“We had a photo of the Queen in our house. It was a very Caribbean thing to do. We’d watch the Queen’s speech at Christmas. They had a lot of respect and reverence for the royal family so it meant a lot to them. Knowing all the elders have been so elated by it tells me (accepting the MBE) is the right thing to do.”
Ruth Pitter’s MBE comes after years of her tireless contributions to around 1,000 community organisations in Bristol.
Her work has often combined the power of theatre and play with the importance of supporting marginalised women and people of colour, and she is perhaps most well known for her groundbreaking black-run theatre group, Breathing Fire, which she launched in 2005. It happens to be the only Black women’s playback theatre group in Europe.
Her work there has been nothing short of inspirational. “We wanted to tell the stories of Black women that we didn’t see represented on stage,” she says.
“We work with communities, we go into schools, prisons, community organisations and create improvised theatre with them. To see the difference theatre has made to people’s lives has been one of my highlights.”
Ruth began acting from a young age, writing and acting in plays with her friends. “I loved that we could do something that had a message. I was quite a shy person, but you can be something different when you’re on stage.”
“When I was younger, I was quite a naughty child,” she reflects. One of Ruth’s oldest memories is being told by a teacher she would end up going to prison if she continued on a path of insubordination. “That stuck with me, even now,” she says.
After going to study youth work at Birmingham University, where Bristol Bus Boycott leader Paul Stephenson was also an alumnus, Ruth did various voluntary stints in London before returning to Bristol to manage the witness service at Bristol Crown Court.
“It was the best job in the world. I used to get a high from the volunteers. But it was also like being in a soap opera. There were horrendous cases but there was also a positivity to the volunteers,” she says.
Ruth then joined VOSCUR, Bristol’s umbrella group for the charity sector, working with high-profile organisations like the Black Development Agency, the Global Majority Teachers Network, and the first Commission on Race Equality in Bristol.
I ask her if she ever takes time for herself. “Thank you for asking,” she laughs, with a hint of relief. She is a singer in Bristol Choral Society and is an avid walker, she tells me.
But it seems Ruth’s pastimes and voluntary work are inextricably tied. After going backpacking for three years, which included walking the Camino de Santiago three times, she decided to launch Grace the Space, a walking group for marginalised women. “I didn’t see anyone like me in these spaces, so I gravitate towards people that look like me.”
Ruth shows no signs of slowing down. She’s currently working on Diaspora, a brand new festival in Bristol showcasing BIPOC Global Ethnic Majority artists from the city across the May bank holiday weekend, and is also working on a memorial to recognise the contributions of African Caribbean heritage Bristolians who were impacted by the transatlantic enslavement of Africans.
“I am the kind of person that likes to push doors open because I’ve had to in the past. My outlook on life is that if it doesn’t work, you just find a way to do it. Someone’s got to get the ball rolling.”
And with that, Ruth Pitter and I part ways, as she runs to her next engagement with a stride in her step, ready to add yet another indelible mark on the fabric of this city.
This feature originally appeared in the latest Bristol24/7 magazine, available for free across our city
Main illustration by Lucy J Turner, an artist, digital illustrator, activist and workshop facilitator who creates bold and bright artworks
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