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In 1948 the British Nationality Act was passed, offering British citizenship to anyone from the Commonwealth and the right to settle here. Thousands of single men from the Caribbean arrived looking for work – the first 400 sailing into Britain on the now famous Windrush boat. With families and sweethearts left behind, romance with local white girls flourished, altering the racial landscape of post-war Britain forever.

Among the new arrivals was Jake Jacobs, recently demobbed from the RAF, who came from Trinidad in search of work. Whilst in Britain, Jake met and fell in love with a young Jewish girl from Liverpool, Mary. The couple, who have been together for 63 years and are now in their mid 80’s, recall falling in love at their first meeting. Jake impresses George by telling how he wooed Mary by quoting Shakespeare!

But though Mary and Jake were sure they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together, Mary’s father was against the match and banished her from the family home. Mary gives George a moving account of the choice she had to make between her family and her future husband, summing up the experience of many such mixed race couples in post war Britain, who had to face mass prejudice and rejection by their own families.