Seretse Khama

Story of a marriage that left the world in shock: New film to tell explosive tale

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• published: 29 Jan 2016
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Story of a marriage that left the world in shock: New film to tell explosive tale of Botswanan prince and his middle-class English wife that caused shockwaves around the world Their romance caused major political and diplomatic ructions. But the extraordinary love story of the late Botswanan president Sir Seretse Khama and his middle-class white English wife Ruth Williams endured despite all the obstacles and outrage. Now it is being told for the first time on the big screen. British stars David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike are portraying the pair whose relationship became the focus of a crisis between Britain and Botswana’s neighbour South Africa, which was about to introduce apartheid. Seretse was the Oxford-educated student prince from the British protectorate of what was then Bechuanaland who in 1948, at 27, married Ruth – a 24-year-old clerk with a Lloyd’s underwriter. Their union was fiercely opposed by her father and Seretse’s family. He was chief in waiting of the Bamangwato tribe and had been sent to London by his uncle Tshekedi Khama to study law, after which he was to return home and marry a woman from his tribe. With this year’s Oscars marred by claims that they are ‘lily white’ because not one of the 20 nominated actors is black, he told the Mail that when it comes to making films about the black experience ‘you’re either part of the solution, or part of the problem’. ‘There’s a lot of conversation about diversity in entertainment and media and one of the things that one mustn’t fall into is the trap of complaining about it, without doing anything about it,’ he said. JOIN VSP GROUP PARTNER PROGRAM: https://youpartnerwsp.com/en/join?98706