Never before and never since has a simple wedding caused such dire threats of breaking international relations and throwing parts of the Western World into secretive high diplomatic frenzy than that of a couple in England in the 1950s.

The marriage in question even caused a major judicial enquiry to be held in Britain with fiery debates in the House of Commons in London and the then ruling British Labour Party threatening to banish the groom from his overseas homeland.

And what, may you ask, was behind all this fuss and nonsense over an ordinary marriage certificate legally melding two people together, supposedly for life?

It was simply because the male concerned in the marriage was an African prince and his bride was a young English woman who worked as a clerk in the offices of Lloyds’ Insurance Company.

At the time of this international hullabaloo, I happened to be working in Africa as a relatively new foreign correspondent and journalist.

The instructions I received from my news editor were that a young Seretse Khama from the royal household of the Bamangwato tribe in Bechuanaland had become secretly betrothed to an even younger Ruth Williams — and a number of foreign governments had considered this act of inter-racial togetherness as a bad political idea of the times.

The problem I faced was that the prince came from what was a British Protectorate which adjoined Apartheid South Africa and a similarly conservative Southern Rhodesia, with both countries being highly opposed to the physical mixing of Blacks and Whites. Some politicians had even threatened to have the adjoining boundaries of these countries closed to prevent “contamination” and fearing inter-racial troubles.

In addition, the political scene in Britain, France and a few other European countries was still coloured by inter-racial problems caused during World War 11 when American Negro soldiers fathered children with local women, causing schisms in families and the political scene in general.

The French were also reportedly concerned about preventing Blacks from meeting with Whites as marital partners as this trend might spread to their African territories, including that of Algeria.

Even Australia at that stage had a ‘White Australia’ policy and the mass of Black African people in Bechuanaland and elsewhere stoically refused to accept having a single drop of White or inter-tribal blood infused into their veins from Cairo to Cape Town.

When news of the wedding reached Seretse’s African homeland, various very heated and sometimes violent tribal protest meetings were called as the idea of their prince marrying a White lady was, to them, a great mistake. Their widespread anger in those years was based on the fact that Seretse had obviously ignored the possibility of marrying one of his own ethnic kind back on his homelands.

When informed of the hush-hush wedding, the prince’s royal uncle, Tshekedi Khama, demanded that Seretse should have his marriage immediately annulled and should instantly return to Bechuanaland in disgrace — without his bride.

This was when I, as a media representative, became involved in the story. I was told that, because the area where Seretse’s royal household was situated in remote semi-desert circumstances, I would also be representing Reuters news agency and a long list of highly interested newspapers around the globe.

The wedding, it seemed to many people at the time, was a flashpoint in international, let alone racial, relations.

Not only was the news of an inter-racial royal wedding the heated gossip of people and politicians in both hemispheres but a few heads of state were also locked in disputes over the fact that a Black man had married the White woman of his choice.

Undaunted by all this, however, the Oxford University educated Seretse decided he would take the world dissenters on — as well as his entire tribe — and return to Bechuanaland with Ruth on his arm as an act of sheer defiance.

At this point, I was in Johannesburg where hire cars were not as yet available for a major safari into the bush and sunburned lands of Darkest Africa. As a result, I had to persuade a taxi driver to take me on what was to be a jaunt over several long and dusty days, all while his mileage meter had to be kept running for my company to pay the bill.

When we eventually arrived at the royal court in Bechuanaland’s Serowe township, there was obvious anger in the air with ominous clutches of people just waiting for an argument.

I soon learned that the much-berated prince and Ruth had already arrived back on his tribal soil. Word also came that his closest tribal elder, Uncle Tshekedi Khama, was to hold a meeting very far from the traditional African ‘welcome home ‘ event.

To everyone’s surprise, Seretse and Ruth accompanied their family member to what was an impromptu meeting in front of their subjects. Tshekedi spoke for a while in front of a silent public but, when Seretse explained his position and introduced Ruth to the crowd, the couple were unexpectedly smothered by words of welcome and agreement over their marital status.

Much to my amazement, a group of leading Bamangwato tribal elders also performed an immediate about-face and announced that Prince Seretse was to be their future chief. This caused Uncle Tshekedi to pack his bags and put himself into instant exile!

It seemed to me that, right from the start of that meeting in dusty Serowe, the Bamangwato people had instantly taken to their educated young prince’s wife.

When I visited Bechuanaland again on various occasions, I was given loads of evidence that the Bamangwato had accepted their future leader’s White wife just as if she had been one of their own.

In fact, the inter-racial and controversial aspects of Seretse’s highly criticised marriage were soon forgotten among the sand dunes of Bechuanaland and overseas and became an important lesson of history. He was later voted in as his country’s first prime minister and then president after achieving Independence, and he and his wife were dubbed Sir and Lady Khama by the late Queen Elizabeth 11 after he dragged Bechuanaland (now Botswana) from dire grass hut poverty to being the third fastest growing nation on earth in terms of time.