[5] She was educated at Eltham Hill Grammar School and then served as a WAAF ambulance driver at various airfields in the south of England during the Second World War.

[7] In June 1947, at a dance at Nutford House organised by the London Missionary Society, her sister introduced her to Prince Seretse Khama.

[9] Their plans to marry caused controversy with elders in Bechuanaland and the government of South Africa, which had recently instituted the system of racial segregation known as apartheid.

[10] Britain was developing an atomic bomb which was felt necessary to maintain Britain's claim to be a great power and it was felt crucial that the supplies of uranium come from within the Commonwealth; South Africa happened to be endowed with much uranium which could be mined cheaply via open pit mining out on the veld by black South African miners who were paid wages considerably lower than the white miners.

[11] The South African government made it very clear that its willingness to supply uranium for the British nuclear program was contingent upon stopping the marriage.

Here, flouting all the dangers he knew to be implicit in [inter-racial marriage], was the scion of the ancient and illustrious House of Khama...And here, seeking to be an African queen, was an English working girl who had been reared to expect nothing more exotic than a semi-detached house in one of London’s great dormitories and a husband who every morning would don his bowler hat, seize his umbrella and catch a red double-decker bus to the city.

[13] In the 1948 South African elections, the Afrikaner nationalist National Party that had strong republican and anti-British tendencies was victorious, and the fear that Prime Minister Malan might declare South Africa a republic led successive British governments to seek to appease Malan, who made it very clear that he disapproved of the Khamas' marriage.

[9] Ruth's arrival in Bechuanaland in August 1949 coincided with the best rainy season in decades, which was taken as a good omen by the Bamangwato, who dubbed her the "Rain Queen".

Knowing that Ruth Khama was a great ailurophile, Bourke-White gave her the gift of two kittens, whom Seretse named Pride and Prejudice after his wife's favourite novel.

[9] At the time, she was pregnant, and in case her child was a boy, she wanted to give birth in Bechuanaland as under Bamangwato custom a future king must be born on their soil.

[13] As Ruth did not speak Setswana and most of the whites of Bechuanaland shunned her, after she was separated from her husband, she was very lonely with her principal companions being her two cats and her infant daughter.

[18] The outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June 1950 increased the importance of South African uranium as it was a major fear of the Attlee government that the United States would become more interested in Asia at the expense of Europe, which it was felt would weaken the American "nuclear umbrella".

[9] In South Africa, the Afrikaner nationalist newspaper Die Transvaaler stated in an editorial, "While trying to prop up with words the whitewashed façade of liberalism, the British government has in practice had to concede to the demands of apartheid".

[13] In a leader (editorial), The Times stated, "They will not easily persuade public opinion, which has righteously been aroused, that the divergence in racial attitude between the Union [of South Africa] and the British territories can best be met by appeasement at cost of personal injustice.

[13] Winston Churchill, as the leader of the Official Opposition, had criticised the ban on Seretse Khama placed by the Attlee government, calling it "a very disreputable transaction".

However, when he won the 1951 election, Churchill would decide to have the ban be permanently enforced, claiming that Seretse's return would be a danger to public order.

[9] During his exile, Prince Seretse suffered from bouts of depression and, in 1952, Ruth told Porter that "Sometimes he just sits in front of the fire warming his hands and brooding.

[26] In addition to this, it has been suggested that the experiences of the Khamas, as well as the somewhat contemporary case of 1950s debutante Peggy Cripps' marriage to the African anti-colonialist Nana Joe Appiah, influenced the writing of the Oscar-winning feature film, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).