A WOMAN was astonished by the reaction when she shared a photo of her parents as part of Black History Month.

Sam Adams posted the image of her black mother Violet and white father Royston on their wedding day to highlight the obstacles they overcame during their 58-year marriage.

Sam, who lives in Woodingdean, Brighton, added it to a Twitter thread celebrating interracial couples for Black History Month – and it has now been liked and retweeted almost 5,000 times.

Sam, 53, said: “My phone was literally constantly going, it was just a response to what someone else had put originally.

“I shared the photo of my mum and dad and now it’s just gone crazy.”

The Argus:

Royston, a floor layer, met Violet in 1960.

She had come to the UK from Anguilla, a British overseas territory in the Caribbean, two years earlier to become a nurse.

They were married within nine months of meeting.

But their interracial relationship sometimes came up against prejudice.

Sam, who is a life coach, said: “I remember my mum saying she was once stood in a queue with my dad and my brother and a woman just looked at them, looked down her nose and told them it was disgusting.

“It was more the subtle things and people looking down on them, I guess.”

“My mum thinks my dad did protect her from a lot of the things they experienced.

“She thinks she was lucky.

“My mum’s father was mixed race so she wasn’t brought up to think badly of anyone, no matter their skin colour, so it was never spoken about.

“She said when she came to England she was naïve.”

Violet is now 83 and the couple were married for 58 years until Royston died in July.

They spent the last 14 years of their marriage living together in Woodingdean, near Sam.

Sam, who has an older brother and sister, said: “It wasn’t like it was a difficult marriage.

“If you were to ask me what the top personal things in my life were, I would say my parents.

“I asked my mum when my dad got sick what was the secret to their marriage and she said ‘we laugh every day’.

“My dad was a joker, he made my mum laugh every day and they liked each other.

“I don’t know if it’s a generational thing but they just liked each other.

“They had a really good marriage, right up until the very end.”