A Mixed Marriage In England

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29401, 31 December 1960, Page 3

A Mixed Marriage In England

The Marriage of Got. By Jenn Lawrie. Gollancz. 224 pp. This book could be set alongside the Institute of Race Relations’ book "Coloured Immigrants in Britain” reviewed last week. It concerns the situation of a Gambian who was in Britain 10 years and the English woman with whom he lived. Miss Jenn Lawrie visited the couple weekly for about a year and the book is a record—mainly in diary form —of her discoveries and observations of their relationship. The family—there are three children to the union—face two major issues which are not unrelated to one another. Gor, the Gambian, has not married Doris the woman, and she is desperately anxious that he does. The other problem is that of housing. They live under terrible conditions in the top of a condemned house in an area where health inspectors refuse to visit, even in day time, unless they are in pairs. . Two prostitutes are on lower floors. Other rooms which would suit their needs are beyond their means. The family awaits rehousing under a London County Council scheme. Their housing problem is significant. Discrimination on grounds of colour is often openly shown in England. The reviewer has frequently seen

i notices in London shop windows offering accommodation, which . have the appended words “no . coloureds.” s Gor’s objections to marriage lie largely in a fear of being linked i irreparably to the life- they are ’ now living in the wretched coni ditions of the rented room. Miss 1 Lawrie spends much of her time ’ during the visits trying to persuade Gor of his responsibility 1 to make the union legal. Interesting light ’s thrown up from the background of Gor ’ and Doris. Before he arrived in 1 England Gor believed that it was a place where all were rich and ■ life was easy. Doris came from ; a family she described as “gypsies.” Violence and intense hat- • red were common in the family • Another aspect of some interest i is the situation with regard to coloured men and white women. i Doris’s comment was that her family was “mad about colour” , and adored half-caste children Miss Lawrie writes what she sees, hears and smells in short graphic sentences. Interpolated are quotations from Doris and Gor which assist the description and present the situation in their own thought. The book has the rather melodramatic sub-title of ' “The True Account of a White . Girl’s Life with a Black Man.”

Much of the account could lend itself to melodrama and Miss Lawrie’s greatest achievement is that she does not give away to it. Occasionally there seems to be a slight uncertainty about the emphasis which should be placed on certain features of thd couple’s relationship but because Miss Lawrie has stuck to what is directly in front of her the book has considerable interest.