TO.P: Another Thing A Number of Long Term Married Couples Have Said Is That After The Kids Go (Grow Up & Leave Home), The Marriage Goes. How Did You Avoid That i.e. How Did You Not Lose Yourselves After Having 4 Kids?
The Natural Flow of The Water Proves To Be A Guide To Self~Awareness, Self~Confidence And Family Success For Des
JT: When You Have Children You Are Busy. But You’ve Got To Remember It’s Not Only About Your Kids It’s About Your Partner As Well. And Somehow We Were Able To Sustain That Over The Years. Which Is A Bit Strange. But There’s Lots of Marriages That Survive Children. And If You Have Nothing In Common Except The Children Then That’s Where Things Are Going To Fail. Because You Have Marriages Where Once The Children Have Left Home The Husband And Wife Can’t Even Talk To Each Other. We’ve Always Done Things Together. When Our Children Were Teenagers We’d Take Ourselves Off On A Sunday. We’d Go To Church And Then We’d Disappear. And When We Came Home The Kids Would Say “Were Have You Been?” [Laughs] “What Time Do You Call This?”
You Have To Have Time For Each Other. I’ve Always Made Sure He Knows I’m Devoted To The Children But I’m Also Devoted To Him. We Love Our Children Dearly, We Get On Very Well With Them. We’re All Very Close. But We’ve Always Loved Each Other As Much. We’ve Both Worked Through The Marriage. He’s Had A Busy Life. I’ve Had A Busy Life. But Somehow We’ve Managed To Keep That Connection, Go Out Together, Events, Dinner Dances And Things Like That. With Other Adults Not Just Children. When They Were Younger We’d Take The Children With Us. So That’s How You Keep Everything Going.
It’s The One’s Who Have Nothing To Talk About Once The Children Are Gone That Have To Rekindle That. But We Never Really Lost It.
DT: I’ve Always Felt Over The Years You’ve Got To Be Able To Do Something For You And Your Wife. And We’ve Done Things Separately And Then Together. We Go To Church Together. We Go To Parties Together. And It’s Been A Partnership. That’s How It Works. It Doesn’t Work Any Other Way. You Know If You Can’t Get Together And Find Some Common Denominator. We Just Go Out For Walks. Go Out To Functions Together. And It’s Not Something We Just Started, We’ve Always Done It.
TO.P: You’ve Got Four Kids And Several Grand Children, Do You Think You’ve Passed On This Way of Loving Each To Your Kids?
JT: Yes. Definitely. They’re In Very Loving Relationships. Three of Them Are Married. The Youngest Isn’t Yet. But They Are All That Way. I Think Lead By Example. My Eldest Son [Coming Up To Forty Five] Got Married In 2010 And He Was With His Partner Eight Years Before Then. My Second Son Got Married [Forty Two] In 2012 And He Met His Partner When He Was 17. And My Daughter [Thirty Seven] Met Her Partner At 18 And He Was 20 And They Got Married In 2017. And My Youngest Son Is 33 In August. They’ve All Been In Long Term Relationships As Well. The Same Grounded Values They’ve Seen From Us They Also Have.
DT: I Think As Jeanette Said, Sometimes, And Most of The Time It’s By Example. And I Think There’s Been A Lot of Luck. Sometimes You Thank Heaven. We’ve Always Tried To Maintain A Family Unit. They See Us Being Together And They Like What They See. We Try And Keep It Going.
JT: And The Thing Is Our Daughter-In-Laws And Son-In-Law Are From Families Like Ours. So It’s Not Only Us Leading By Example But They’ve Seen It From Their Parents.
TO.P: Do You Still Fancy Each Other?
JT: Yes! I’ve Always Fancied Him. You Have To Otherwise There’s Nothing There.
DT: Yes! I Still Fancy My Wife. You’ve Still Got To Have That Twinkle.
The Generation That We Came From, People Had To Work And Work Hard At It. And I Think We’re Now Probably Bearing All The Fruits of That Work. And It’s Been Hard Work.
JT: Marriage Isn’t Easy
DT: Relationships Are Not Easy
JT: There Are Times When You Annoy Each Other Like Hell, But You’ve Still Got That Foundation of Love And Respect. You Have To Be Selfless In The Relationship. That Is The Thing. When You Raise Your Children It’s Not About You. It’s About Them.
You Have To Be Able To See And Read The Person. Are They Tired? Why Are They Angry? Why Are They Miserable? If It’s Not You Maybe It’s Something That Happened Outside. Unfortunately It Gets Brought In. But You’ve Got To Read – Is It Something You’ve Done That’s Annoyed Him (Because You’ve Just Said Something) or Is It Something That Happened Outside (And Unfortunately It’s Just Been Brought Inside)? We All Do It. So It’s An Understanding of Each Other.
TO.P: What’s The Toughest Thing About Being Married?
Life Is Not Always A Bed Of Rose’s And Des Was Always Self Employed Running His Own Business As Well As Involvement In His Lodge, Which Took Up A Lot Of Time. And Being A Magistrate, Sitting On The Bench In A West London Court District For Many Years As Well As His Involvement As Chairman Of The BCA (Black Contractors Association). And Also Sitting On Various Committees For A Remand Centre. You Can Imagine A Lot of Time Spent Raising Our 4 Children Was Left To Me. This Did Cause Arguments At Times But We Pulled Through It All.
We Were Blessed With Good Kids. And They Knew How To Behave When We Left The House. And We Never Wanted Them Hanging Around The Streets. We Made A Point of Getting Them Into Activities.
DT: I Made Clear To Kids At Home It Was Not A Democracy. I Told Them How It Was Going To Be. And They Had To Just Do It. And They Did. And We Are To This Day A Very Close Family. It’s About Knowing The Formula.
TO.P: What Is The Formula?
DT: The Formula Is What Works For You. It’s Like Water. You’ve Got To Find Your Own Level!
In 1966 Dionne Warwick Sang ‘What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love’ (Written By Burt Baccarharat & David Hal In The Midst of The Vietnam War. With All The Hate, Destruction And Negativity Across The World Right Now, We Decided To Embrace The Opportunity To Talk About Love & Positivity For A Change Given, That Is Is The Month of Valentine’s Day. And Des & Jeanette Were A Great Couple To Talk To And Learn From. Their Words And Insights Were Powerful And Provide Great Inspiration.
They Are A Great Example of Strong Family Bonds And Love Within The Black Community. However Such Existience Is Often Denied By Certain Racists Who Maintain Love And Family Is Not Something Black People Are Familiar With, As Part of Their Centuries Old Attempts To De-humanise Black People.
One Outrageous Example of This Is Re-Trumplican Politician Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, America, Who Stacey Plaskett, of The United States Virgin Islands Took To Task About That In March 2021 In No Uncertain Terms.
And Pioneering Director Ava DuVernay Championed The Televison Love Story ‘Cherish The Day’ Because She Believes There Is A Need For More Black Love Stories To Be Told And Shown.
Socially Conscious Justice Campaigner And Actress, The Late Cicely Tyson, Was Oscar Nominated For Her Role In The 1972 Powerful Les-Miserables-Esque Love Story ‘Sounder’ Set In The Deep South of America. And One of The Greatest Modern Love Stories Within The Black Community Is That of Former First Lady And President of America, Michelle And Barack Obama. They Recently Posted Their Valentine’s Pictures on Instagram. And Denzel Washington And His Wife Pauletta Have One of The Longest Lasting Marriages In Hollywood.
There Is Real Love In The Black Community And Beautiful Black Families And We Celebrate Their Existence And The Drive To Hear More About Them.
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