For All Of My Life

"Rooms to let - No Niggers, No Irish and No dogs"

This sign, openly displayed in England in the 1950's, symbolises a time associated with overt racism and discrimination. It was during this period, that Betty Jones, a twenty year old white English woman did the unthinkable; she fell in love with an African man.

'For All of My Life' is the remarkable journey of a resilient and spirited woman who at the age of 64 was determined to tell her story. The book gives you a glimpse of the life of a woman from a working class Northern background, who followed her heart to marry the man she loved. Disowned by her family and rejected by the world around her Betty embarks on a journey that takes her across England, Cyprus and to a region of Africa described at the time as the 'white man's grave', before returning to England in the mid 60's with her four young children.

The marriage was disastrous, not because of race, but because Betty had married a man with immense potential for deceit and violence. Indeed it was through the crossing of racial boundaries that Betty found her main sources of support. Living in Africa, the 'family' she created, unfettered by orthodox constraints, engendered a kinship that was to sustain her until her death.

" . . Betty Jones' survival of violence and abuse is less a testimony of strength, though it is that too, than a revelation of one simple but elusive quest: that she sought only to love and be loved. She leaves us with the belief that it is not expectations we must live up to, but dreams."