During World War II, a young woman named Trudy Menard got a job at the Rootes aircraft factory in Speke, Britain. She had no idea that this job would change her life forever.
When she started working, Trudy learned that she would be assisting a young engineer named Barclay Patoir. He had come all the way from British Guiana, which is now called Guyana, to help with the lack of workers at the factory. Barclay later shared that many young men from the Caribbean volunteered to support Britain during the war because there was a big need for engineers.
At first, Trudy felt unsure about working with Barclay. You might wonder why. It was because she was white and he was black. Trudy had never met a black person before, and she felt nervous about being close to him.
At first, the two hardly spoke to each other, but as time went on, they started to like each other more and more. One day, during a break in their work, he asked her out on a date, and she was super excited to say yes to his long-awaited invitation.
They hopped on a train to Southport. While traveling, they noticed some people looking at them with disapproving glances, but Trudy and Barclay didn’t let that bother them at all.
The times were different back in the day and although Liverpool had one of the first established Black settlements, racism was everywhere.
“I didn’t tell my mother when I was going to see Barclay,” Trudy recalled. “She thought I was going in to town to meet the girls. She had noticed I was very happy but she didn’t know why. When she did find out she threatened to throw me out the house.”
In 1944, even though a lot of people didn’t support their relationship, the couple chose to get married. Unfortunately, their interracial marriage faced a lot of disapproval, even from the priest they approached to perform the ceremony.
The priest told them, “There are so many colored men coming here and then going back home, leaving the women with kids. So I can’t marry you.” This made Trudy and her partner really upset, as she remembered.
Instead of a church marriage, Trudy and Barclay organized a small ceremony at the Liverpool Register Office. There were only two people in attendance, except for the newlyweds; Trudy’s sister and one of Barclay’s friends.
They moved to Manchester and had two daughters. As time went by, this couple noticed how attitudes towards interracial couples changed, and they were happy that marrying someone from a different race was no longer such a big deal.
“Back in the day, people would stare or whisper and giggle when you walked by, but now they just don’t care,” Barclay said.
“People don’t walk on the other side of the street like they used to,” Trudy commented.
This loving couple stayed together for 76 years before they both passed away in May 2020, within hours of each other.
Barclay was 100, and Trudy was 99.
Even though they faced many challenges when they were younger, these two had an amazing life together.
To learn more about their wonderful and motivating love story, watch the video below. Make sure to share it with your friends to show them that real love is always worth the effort.