Courtship and Marriage  

Mrs Mooi Tran

I was 21 when I got married. It was all arranged by parents. Someone approached my parents and they went to see the prospective groom. I had no say. My parents didn't care so much about what the prospective son-in law did for a living. The most important thing for them was that he respected the elders and was gentle; those were the main criteria. Once they had seen him, they told me, and it was arranged. I had to accept my parents' wishes. The groom's family gives you and your friends biscuits. We were also asked how much we wanted for the wedding from the groom's family. After the dowry has been agreed, then both sides will celebrate and have individual feasts. We are then engaged and a week passes until the wedding day.

I didn't see the groom until the wedding day. The wedding began in the morning. My parents gathered my friends and we celebrated together. In those days, three or four days before the wedding, there would have been many feasts; my mother and father would have invited many people. They would have had roast pork and duck, loads of nice food to entertain friends. I had two different outfits for the wedding; the first was a red top and skirt with intricate embroidery, but when I was at the groom's house later on, I changed into a traditional Chinese wedding dress with a head-dress and presented myself to my in-laws. I had to kneel down and offer tea to them.

They decorated the car with lots of flowers made into bouquets and there was music and singing. My mother employed people to go with me in the car. They showed me how to offer tea to the in-laws. My parents didn't go with me; I had to go by myself. I was very nervous. I didn't know what to expect I had never left my parents until now so I was scared going to a complete stranger's house. When I reached the groom's house, a woman came and gave me a piggy-back into the groom's house. This was the first time I actually saw him. On the third day the tradition is to go back to your parents where I was fed roast pig. Then later on my husband came and picked me up.

I had a very traditional marriage. My husband went out to work and I looked after the home and family. I had four boys, no girls. I was still living in the city, but kept myself to myself. My husband was very busy running the restaurant, while I took care of the boys, got them ready for school and visited my parents. I didn't live on my own though. I had servants to help me take of the home and my in-laws were there too. I hardly saw my husband as he took more interest in earning money. I would take the boys and visit him at the restaurant.
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Mr Ade Aderogba

I went to an all boy's boarding school, so meeting members of the opposite sex was virtually impossible. But quite often, during inter-school sports, girls came in from Queens College, or Regal Memorial Grammar School from other Colleges. And they had to change in the boys' shower room in the boarding house. As a school prefect, I had the responsibility to marshal my boys, to make sure that they behaved. They were like lions in a cage. They'd want to see the girls, so they would say, "Sir prefect, can I go to the toilet?" And I would say, "No you can't, the girls are changing." That kind of leadership role (where you just had to be whiter than white so to speak!) made it difficult to start a dating relationship with any member of the opposite sex. So I did not have any serious relationships with women until I came to England. A lot of my colleagues who settled in England had girlfriends back home, so the moment they settled down, they sent letters to them, saying they would arrange passports and so on, for their spouses join them, but I was a free agent.

I met my wife on a total blind date. I was a local government officer in Camden, in St Pancras Town, and my future wife was an officer in Holborn, Camden. The local Government Tennis Tournament was held in London annually those days, in the mid-sixties. I didn't have a mixed doubles partner and neither did she, and we were drawn to play together. We met at Haverstock Hill Tennis Club, and we started playing the tournament and from there we got to know each other and ended up as boyfriend and girlfriend. I went and stayed in a town called Retford in Nottinghamshire, when we were courting. I met her parents and they were wonderful. That contributed a lot to my decision to set up a permanent relationship with this lady. They made me feel at home during the time we spent at Nottingham. So we started planning marriage and then we got married in March 1967. It was a typical Town Hall wedding with her friends from the local authority offices in Holborn and my colleagues from Saint Pancras Town Hall, my Nigerian friends and so on. We then set up home together.

It was a mixed marriage which was a rarity in those days. I remember when I went to Retford, which is a very small town in Nottinghamshire, children coming out and shouting, "Black man, Black man". Some of them came to touch me. They touched my skin, and I remember one day when we sat in the park, one of them came up and touched my hair; they just couldn't resist the temptation to see what my hair felt like. Yes, there were minor objections from both sides. One of her sisters said, "Can't you find an English man to marry? Why do you want to marry a foreigner or a black person?" And I remember one of my own brothers saying, "Why do you want to marry a foreigner? Can't you find a Nigerian in London? We can find one here, in Lagos or in Ibadan for you!" So those are things that we just took for granted, but we were both old enough to know that we were in love and that we wanted one another and had made up our minds to get married. But my mother was very supportive and so were her parents.

Extracts from the 'Mapping Memories' publication. Many more stories are included in the book. Find out how to obtain a copy here