Contact Rita at tolhouse47@gmail.com
Rita Trotman is a prize-winning author of short stories and a playwright. Her dramas and pantomimes have been produced throughout the U.K. and her articles published in newspapers and magazines.
Take Three Boys, her non-fiction account of life in a Romanian orphanage, is available on Amazon in Kindle format. All proceeds are donated to her charity the Joseph Foundation. This book caught the eye of the Telegraph’s Ways With Words Literary Festival where the Director Kay Dunbar, called the book ‘inspiring, beautifully written and hard to put down.’
Dorin and Adrian
THREE YOUNG MEN RESCUED IN 2000 FROM LIFE IN A ROMANIAN ORPHANAGE
These lads were so worthy of having their lives documented. Their courage and trust is heart-warming and the conditions in which I found them, almost beyond belief.
Gheorgie
‘Tiger Tails‘ Rita’s colour illustrated children’s book was inspired by the amazing photos of tigers in the wild which were generously donated by Dr Param Sandhu. It is available by clicking the link below.
Buy this book here
https://www.wordzworth.com/sales/authorbooks?ISBN=9781783241491
Pantomime ‘The Elves and The Shoemaker’ is a traditional panto with all the jokes and tomfoolery loved by children and adults alike.
Now available from Scripts for Stage
Rita also writes contemporary women’s fiction.
An excerpt from her debut novel is below
The Way It Is
When Alfie and Saskia cross social boundaries, the combination of teenage love, drink and drugs turns life into chaos. Shocked by the action of their children, both mothers struggle to deal with the fallout. Laden with guilt, Lottie and Tracey set out to rescue their kids from life-threatening situations. Each has her own perspective on the disastrous liaison and there are no connective strands.
December 1997
The youth parks his wheels and swaggers along the pavement to a concrete high-rise. Tattered jeans hang low over narrow hips and a biker-jacket protects him from the northerly blow. He legs it up the crumbling steps of Skankland, a quaint name for the hang-out of despots and alcoholics, wife-beaters and old lags. Chocolate eyes scan for snoopers, cameras, misfits. When satisfied he has no on-lookers, Alfie turns the key on number thirty-two and slips inside.
There’s no word of greeting from the old man who’s glued to a forty-inch monitor. Fag ash is scattered across the arm of his chair and the air is bread pudding thick. A whiff of decay marks the man and his possessions.
‘Yer up then?’
‘Corse I am. It’s nearly bloody dinnertime.’
Alfie’s nose wrinkles at the stench of pee creeping from a glass jar at Dickie’s feet. It’s the colour of yesterday’s orange juice. A meagre heat seeping from an electric fire accounts for the old man’s muffled appearance. His hunkered torso is fattened by layers of clothing which make a robust man of him. Stalactites of mucous perch on neglected nose hair and emaciated fingers worry a duvet wrapped around his lower limbs.
‘I delivered that bit of paperwork to your brief.’ Alfie runs his finger through layers of dust.
‘Spose yer good for something then. Did yer steam it open? Have a look did yer?’
‘As if.’
Dickie reaches for a match to light his fag. His gnarled hand flicks ash somewhere handy to the ashtray. He’s a fifty-fags-a-day bloke with a cough to prove it but nobody suggests he should give them up. He wouldn’t give a damn if they did. Alfie crosses to the window and swishes the curtains back against the wall. New light lifts the gloom.
‘Heh, what yer doing?’ Dickie’s arms spasm objection. ‘I like it dark. Draw them curtains back.’
A solitary tree skitters sunlight into the murk as Alfie opens the window. Wide.
‘Shut that fuckin’ window. I’m froze to the marrow ‘ere.’
‘Shut it yerself, Old Man.’ Alfie puts himself in Dickie’s face and catches the stench of decay. ‘Oh, I forgot. You can’t, can yer ? Yer legs don’t work. Ha! Not such a big man these days, are you?’
The old man mutters about yobs with fuckin’ earrings who think they know it all. He gives an exaggerated shiver and hugs himself before lighting the umpteenth fag of the day. He turns up the volume on the television and ignores his visitor. ‘Good Morning Britain’ adds glamour and volume to the late morning.
‘Cut it out Old Man. I’ve come to visit, haven’t I?’ Alfie takes command of the remote control. ‘Can’t hear meself think with them stupid bitches rattling on.’
The old man scowls. ‘My tele’.
‘Is that your idea of a bit of skirt these days?’ Alfie gives a scathing snort. ‘At least yer leaving Mum alone, I ‘spose.’
The old man’s tremor causes the cigarette to dance in his hand. His eyes leak rheumy drips. ‘Nobody asked you to fuckin’ come. Fuckin’ riddles. All you ever talk is fuckin’ riddles. Why don’t you piss off and leave me in peace?’
‘It’s Christmas coming up. Want any groceries?’
‘Don’t want nothing. Christmas don’t matter to me. Same as any other day of the year.’
‘Please yerself’.
‘At least I can still do that.’
Alfie helps himself to a cigarette and lights it with an exaggerated gasp. He holds the smoke in his respiratory track, revisiting the joy of that first drag after months of abstinence. Smoke blown into the old man’s face heralds a phlegmy cough. ‘Better get that cough seen to. Might carry yer off, one of these days.’
‘Where’s yer manners?’
‘Left years ago. Round about the time you crawled into Mum’s bed. Got you to thank fer having no manners.’
Alfie makes a casual inspection of medical notes sitting in a blue folder. ‘On the Social now? Nice. Where’s all yer money gone?
‘None of yer business.’
‘Oh yes, I forgot. You lost it all. Just like you lost yer legs. Very careless, letting yobs beat you up in the alley.’
‘Shut yer trap. I do alright. And anyway, buy your own bleeding fags. They cost a fortune these days.’
A pack of cigarettes appear on the arm of the chair. ‘There you go. Don’t say I never give you nothing.’ Alfie smirks at the pathetic specimen.
‘Don’t smoke them sort. Time you knew what I smoke.’ Dickie picks them up anyway and squirrels them under the duvet.
‘Thought I’d keep you company Old Man. What with it being nearly Christmas. Having a turkey this year, are you? I ‘spect even a disgusting shit like you likes a bit of turkey.’ Alfie sits himself down on an orange, plastic pouffe and faces the breathing bag of bones. ‘This is comfy.’ He wriggles to settle his backside.
‘That’s for me feet, kid.’ Arms flap in protest.
‘Cantankerous ain’t you? I’ll not nick it.’ Alfie arranges his legs around the circumference of the pouffe. ‘Comfy.’
‘Never mind about comfy. Shut that bleeding window. The sun makes me squint and it’s like Siberia in ‘ere.’
‘At least it don’t smell so bad in here. Quit carping. You’ll soon be nice and toasty, old man. Very soon’
‘More bloody riddles. Clear off.’
‘I’m going. But you…if I was you…I’d have a nice long sleep.’
Alfie places his glowing cigarette into the surface of the plastic pouffe and waits until it begins to melt. He ruffles the old man’s ginger frizz, wishes him Merry Christmas and leaves him to warm up.
Stutterford Gazette December 18th 1997
Fire officers were called to a flat fire in Western Way on Tuesday where the body of a man was discovered. Mr Richard Hine was overcome by smoke and perished in what officers called a ‘strong surge of flames.’ The cause of the fire is under investigation, but the disabled man was known to be a heavy smoker. No other occupants in the tower block were injured.
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Rita Trotman Author 