Inter racial marriages in the 1960's Northern England acceptable or not?

Question

Most of my family are from the South, London or Wales but a branch went up North and sometime in the 60's my cousing Marilyn married Rufus a Nigerian immigrant. Had an argument with my mum that it was a guttsy thing to do, but she said no. In the 60's there was alot of racial integration up North. Hardly any black people in the South though.

Apparently they lived in Sheffield.

I lived in Guildford at the time and befor they got married they asked my parents if they could come and stay for a holiday with us. My mum refused. My brother told me about this, I would have only been about 7. Anyway it was more a what would the neighbours think sittuatation. This obviously didn't go down well with that branch of the family and was compounded later when we went to live in Rhodesia in the early 70's. No contact since. We are now back in Wales.

Answer 1

My gran's from Leeds and married my grandad who is from Jamaica in the early sixties and had 4 children. I think it depends where you lived. Where they lived, in the city, it was quite the norm. I also recently watched a documentary about Tiger Bay in Wales and this was happening there too. It stems from the ports, Liverpool and South Shields were also ahead of their time from a racial intergration point of view.

Answer 2

When I grew up in a town in the North East in the late fifties/sixties there was a lot of immigration. Because of my mum's job we knew many Jamaicans and people from India as well as many Poles. The labour market really needed this extra workforce and my memory says that integration wasn't a problem.

I don't think what was then known as a "mixed marriage" was all that common but the sixties was a time of such big changes that many things became acceptable. People's opinions will, of course, always differ and I am sure there was some racism in our town.

So, probably you and your mum are both right to some extent!

What surprises me is what you say about the South. When I left home1968 and went to live in "the Smoke" i.e. London, I was amazed at what a "great big melting pot" it was. Every race, creed & colour was available though, perhaps, this was true of central London where I lived rather than the suburbs or towns equivalent in size to my home town.

Answer 3

Inter racial marriages probably will experience more difficulties both internal and external but if they assimilate into the wider community they will surely enrich that community.

On a small scale they are surely desirable, on a large scale there is the possibility of undermining the culture of that community, which may create problems.

If there is a widespread introduction of a foreign culture then it is probably not acceptable but otherwise why not?

Answer 4

I am from the North + was around in the 60s, + from what I remember, an inter-racial marriage would have raised a few eyebrows.

Answer 5

I live in the North and it would have been generally frowned upon I think to have a mixed marriage in the sixties around here.

People aren't so bigoted these days (at least, not openly) but even so I haven't seen more than one mixed race couple in the town I live in.

Answer 6

it's getting better now (Sunderland) but one couple was hounded out of the square I grew up on because she was 'white' and he was oriental. They were a lovely couple and I couldn't understand it. I didn't hear disrespect for anyone at home so it was a totally foreign concept for me.