On December 6, 2001, at the end of a whirlwind courtship, June Williams Thorne married Charles Conliffe Roach in the garden of her Champs Elysees home.
Two days after the simple luncheon ceremony with just witnesses and family, the new groom returned to his home in Toronto. On the first day of the year 2002, the couple hosted a reception in the Champs Elysees garden, beautifully decorated in Pan African colours of red, green and black.
And in what continues to be a relationship straight from a romance novel, the Roach's travelled through Africa and Europe on a six-week honeymoon from mid-January.
It is the second marriage for June, a mother of three adult sons, a former music teacher at Holy Name Convent for 16 years, co-founder of The Marionettes chorale with Jocelyn Pierre, and founder of the Chanteurs Immortelle Choir. And also the second time around for the groom, a widower and father of three adult daughters. Roach grew up in Belmont, attended St Mary's College, and now heads a firm of seven lawyers engaged in various areas of the law. He is currently preparing to defend a client charged with genocide at the International Criminal Tibunal.
The courtship began last year July when June casually mentioned to a friend that she was going on a two month holiday, first to Toronto to see her son, his wife and young daughter, then on to Montreal and London. Her friend's reply was "Oh boy I have a very good friend there (in Toronto), a very cultured person, I am going to write him a letter and give you to take to him."
At first June couldn't locate Charles. She left a message on an answering machine and never got a reply. But the friend with whom she was staying in Toronto remembered that he was a well-known, black activist lawyer, whose number must be in the book.
June then rang Charley. They chatted about everything except the letter which was really from a young Trinidadian who knew his children, and agreed that she would mail it to him. As soon as he got the letter the following week, he rang and made an appointment to see June the next day, around midday.
June was staying quite a bit outside of Toronto so they drove for about an hour or more chatting very comfortably along the way, finding out a lot about each other on this their first meeting. "We were supposed to visit between 12 and 4 p.m. as I had to see another friend around 6 p.m. but five o'clock came with absolutely no talk about going back until I reminded him I had to see this friend."
June went on to Montreal and London for a month, promising Charley to give him a call when she came back to Toronto. "I was only spending three days in Toronto but I called him." This time their date was aboard the ferry to Ward Island and says June "it was a marvellous day, I reluctantly rode a bicycle after so many years, we walked and walked on Ward's Island and generally had a good time. Coming off the ferry, we walked around the seafront, went to a food fair where a Mexican band was playing, and at 11p.m. he took me back home after walking and walking and talking and talking."
The pair exchanged e-mail addresses, June came home, and that is when the romance really began as Charley courted June via the e-mail "with magnificent poetry which he writes. He is also a musician and painter and cooks very well" boasts his new wife. Charley was smitten, and June who had promised never to get married again in this life, realised that she was falling in love with this man who would be a lovely companion.
Charley came on his first visit home in about ten years, for four days in October. Then came back on November 24 for two weeks, and from the first day made it quite clear he was not going back to Toronto without making June, Mrs Charles Roach. "There had been a lot of e- mailing going on and his talking about marriage. I realised that if I continued to want him just as a companion I was going to lose him and he had the sort of temperament and character that I really liked." In two short weeks, plans were finalised for the quiet December 6 ceremony.
As we chatted last Tuesday, a very happy June was making plans to visit her new spouse by the end of the month, knowing full well that soon she will have to divide the year between life in the cold city of Toronto and the warmth of Trinidad, but it will be with Charley, whom she considers "a very special man."