Rita Bartlett

Rita Bartlett ( - 11th December, 2013) was born Rita Bridge in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. She was the daughter of an Irish Catholic mother and an atheist Communist Father. At the age of sixteen she started on a spiritual search, in the company of a much older lady, Dorothy Bartlett. She attended a public meeting on the Bahá'í Faith in 1964, and soon became a dedicated Bahá'í, pioneering at one time to the Orkney Islands, and at another time to the Outer Hebrides (the "Western Isles"). Graduating from the Cardiff College of Music and Drama, she became a person of note within the world of television entertainment, because her skill in puppetry led her from working with the Welsh Caricature Theatre to working on well-known children's T.V. programmes, such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlett.

She married Vivian, the son of Dorothy Bartlett, and pioneered within Wales. She undertook work with disadvantaged children, and in addition to raising her own children she undertook fostering. Her husband, Viv Bartlett, wrote the popular introductory book, Finding The Real You. In 1994 she was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United Kingdom, and served on this body for fifteen years. As a representative of the National Spiritual Assembly, she met Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Head of State of the United Kingdom, on several occasions.

Although her health was deteriorating, she continued to serve on the National Spiritual Assembly as long as possible, but passed to the next world late in 2013. Obituaries appeared in The Guardian, which is a U.K. national newspaper, in newspapers in Wales, and on the Welsh language Radio Cymru. She leaves a son and two daughters.

External links

Rita's life story: http://bahaihistoryuk.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/rita-bartlett/