Our love was colour blind... but our families weren't

[Bayard]

Deeply moving, and exposing tensions that still blight Britain today, mixed-race couples from four generations tell their stories.

Mary, 81, is married to Jake, 86, and lives in Solihull in the West Midlands. They have no children. Mary is a former deputy head teacher, and Jake worked for the post office before retiring. Mary is white and Jake is black, originally from Trinidad.
MARY SAYS: When I told my father I was going to marry Jake he said, ‘If you marry that man you will never set foot in this house again.’
He was horrified that I could contemplate marrying a black man, and I soon learned that most people felt the same way. The first years of our marriage living in Birmingham were hell — I cried every day, and barely ate. No one would speak to us, we couldn’t find anywhere to live because no one would rent to a black man, and we had no money.

People would point at us in the street. Then I gave birth to a stillborn son at eight months. It wasn’t related to the stress I was under but it broke my heart, and we never had any more children.
Now it’s very hard to comprehend the prejudice we encountered, but you have to remember that there were hardly any black people in Britain in the Forties. I met Jake when he came over during the war from Trinidad, as part of the American forces stationed at the Burtonwood base near my home in Lancashire. We were at the same technical college. I was having typing and shorthand lessons and he’d been sent there for training by the Air Force. He was with a group of black friends and they called my friend and me over to talk. We didn’t even know they spoke English, but Jake and I got chatting. He quoted Shakespeare to me, which I loved.

A few weeks later we went for a picnic, but were spotted by a lady cycling past — two English girls with a group of black men was very shocking — and she reported me to my father, who banned me from seeing him again.

Jake returned to Trinidad, but we carried on writing to each other, and a few years later he returned to the UK to get better paid work.

He asked me to marry him, quite out of the blue, when I was only 19. My father threw me out, and I left with only one small suitcase to my name. No family came to our register office wedding in 1948.

But gradually life became easier. I got teaching jobs, ending up as a deputy head teacher. First Jake worked in a factory, then for the Post Office.
Slowly we made friends together, but it was so hard. I used to say to new friends: ‘Look, I have to tell you this before I invite you to my home — my husband is black.’

My father died when I was 30 and although we were reconciled by then, he never did approve of Jake.
Today we have been married for 63 years, and are still very much in love. I But gradually life became easier. I got teaching jobs, ending up as a deputy head teacher. First Jake worked in a factory, then for the Post Office.
Slowly we made friends together, but it was so hard. I used to say to new friends: ‘Look, I have to tell you this before I invite you to my home — my husband is black.’

My father died when I was 30 and although we were reconciled by then, he never did approve of Jake.
Today we have been married for 63 years, and are still very much in love.

Other stories and photos at:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2045815/Our-love-colour-blind--families-werent-Mixed-race-couples-generations-tell-stories.html

[Kind of Blue]

1. Nowadays I say to young black people: 'You have no idea what it used to be like.'

And I thank them for their strength making it ridiculously easy for our future. Luckily for many decades we had beautiful parents whose support was priceless.

Thanks for posting, Bayard, the stories of the families whose love effortlessly radiates thru their photos.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I can't begin to imagine.

Had either of my sons fallen in love with a black woman, my only concern would have been, was her family willing to accept us? I would hope so, but who knows?

I was always prepared to assume the best of anyone my sons would have been with. As it happens, one son has died, the other is very much a solo person. That doesn't change my sense of, I hope her family would accept us.

I am speaking as a woman raised Catholic who married a Jewish man, so I know a little bit about these things.

[Duppers]

3. Things have changed in the U.K.

And mixed couples there have been accepted for decades in educated communities.

[HipChick]

4. England is not without it's own systematic race issues..

[Blue_true]

5. True. It did a much better job of hiding it than here in the USA.

What I see in my southern city is that young people hook up if they are compatible on issues outside of race. I see inter-racial children all the time, including in my own family.