The remarkable love story that defied the White Australia policy

Shirley Sidhu didn't expect to meet the love of her life when she moved from Western Australia to Adelaide in 1956 to pursue a midwifery degree.

But a chance encounter while working as a nurse in the premature babies ward at the Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital changed everything. 

"I was in the nursery and this great big basket of nappies arrived," she said. 

"He came around the corner asked me, 'Are there any new babies?' and I said, 'No, but I've had a phone call there'll be one coming any minute'.

That moment sparked a romance that would soon be halted by their families, and Australian society.  

Young love torn apart 

Hacharan "Sid" Singh Sidhu was a 26-year-old Indo-Malaysian student doctor from Ipoh on a Sikh scholarship, a relatively new initiative introduced during the White Australia policy years. 

While Shirley said Sid was the "most gentle, kind, intelligent and polite man" she had ever encountered, convincing her family and friends was another story. 

Shirley's best friend alerted her family back in WA of their relationship, and her family acted fast. 

"She wrote to my family and said that I was going out with Sid and so they sent my brother to Adelaide to try and stop it … to which I said no," she said. 

"Even though my mother said to me, 'If you love him, just go with him' ... my father was very upset.

It wasn't just Shirley's family who disapproved of the relationship. 

"Sid's mother said if he got involved with me, they wouldn’t educate anymore of their children," she said.

 

Racist laws and society

Sid and Shirley's relationship began during the White Australia policy, a time when racist views were rife and a series of discriminatory laws aimed at preventing immigration from non-European backgrounds were in place.

The White Australia policy was an attempt to maintain a predominantly white, British-oriented society and had real implications for Australian citizens of non-European heritage — something Shirley could not understand.

"Nobody wanted people of colour in their families and I think a lot of people thought about the White Australia policy," she said.

Aware of Australia's views on immigrants and people of colour, Sid was cautious in Shirley's company. 

"All the time I ever went out with Sid, he never, ever would hold my hand in public," she said.

"Some people on the street would say to me, 'My god, what are her parents thinking?'"

While the Holt government began dismantling the White Australia policy in 1966, and the Whitlam government introduced policies like the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, it was too late for Sid and Shirley.

With both families' disapproval and Sid having to return to Malaysia as part of his scholarship conditions, the couple ended their three-year relationship. 

Shirley returned to WA to try and heal from her heartbreak. 

Reconnecting after two decades

Unbeknownst to Shirley, Sid had returned to Australia two years after their relationship ended, and had tried to write to her expressing his desire to pick up where they left off.

The letters were intercepted by Shirley's father and sister. 

"I didn't know at the time but my father sent my sister and her husband to the airport to meet Sid, and obviously some words were exchanged," she said.

Shirley went on to marry and have three children, while Sid moved to the Riverland town of Renmark, where he married, had four children and became a well-respected doctor. 

It wasn't until 25 years later when Shirley separated from her husband and moved back to South Australia, the pair finally reconnected through mutual friends. 

They began writing to each other, and it soon became clear their love for each other never faded.

"My dearest, I love you and it's easy and beautiful to say that to you and mean it and enjoy it," Sid wrote in one of his letters.

'True love a miracle'

The couple married three years later and spent 34 loving years together in South Australia's Riverland, before Sid passed away in December 2023, aged 93. 

"One of the last things Sid said to me before he died was, 'I'll never forgive myself for not asking why you weren't there to meet me at the airport that day,'" she said.

"He assumed that I had decided I didn't want to meet him and he regretted that he didn't ask ... and I regret it too.

Shirley said while society had evolved after three decades, some family members still disapproved of their relationship. 

"I know my sister was very colour prejudice and she was horrified to think that there was going to be a black person in her family," she said.

"She didn't come to the wedding when we eventually got married.

"In contrast to that though, when I first met Sid's mother after all those years, she looked at me … and she said, 'She's the one.'"

Shirley was recently diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer and has decided not to pursue treatment. 

She has been told she has about two years left to live, and she looks forward to the day she is finally back in Sid's arms again.

"For the first time in my life, I wonder what's going to happen to you when you die and I wonder if you do get to see the people that have already gone," she said.

"If I do, I will say to him just hold me, 'Just hold me and don't let me go, there's no hiding anymore and no running away.'"