Electronic Precinct - August 1998

Love in black and white

Two students who graduated from this University in 1927 play important roles in the film 'Love in black and white', which will be broadcast as part of the "Windrush" series. One graduate, Muriel Fletcher, wrote a report about mixed marriages in dockland Liverpool which laid the foundation for 50 years of stigmatisation. The other, Margaret Todd, later Simey, spent time in the Caribbean and, on her return to Liverpool, became a champion of the black community.

The programme was made by Liverpool producer/director Bea Freeman, who is herself a Liverpool graduate and one of the University's first 'Second Chance' students.

'Fifty years ago, the Fletcher report stigmatised white women who married black men. Now, white women who have been happily married to black men for half a century get their chance to tell their story. It is a story of the stigma and discrimination which they, their partners and their children suffered', she said.

This photograph of Muriel Fletcher and Margaret Todd, (second and third from left, middle row) with students and staff of the School of Social Science 1926-27, was loaned to the programme makers by the University Library.

'Love in black and white' will be shown at 8.10pm on Saturday 29 August on BBC2.