Clare Jenkins got married after twenty years living with her partner.
"Steve and I met on the No 69 bus from Sheffield to Rotherham. We were on our way to Rotherham Civic Theatre to see an ancient Roman farce. He liked my coloured stockings, I liked the fact that he made me laugh. So we arranged to go on a date the next day. He took me down the canal. Not the obvious choice for a first date, but it was quite interesting.
After a while, he moved in. Or, rather, he came back for coffee one evening, stayed overnight, and never quite moved out. 'It's just a temporary measure,' he said, 'just while I'm looking for a place of my own.' He never did find one.
So that was that. We became a couple. Not long afterwards, we bought a house, and began living together. That was 22 years ago, and we've been living together ever since. But we never married, not until last summer.
In the early days, marriage was occasionally discussed, but we never saw the point. We weren't planning to have children, we were perfectly happy as we were, we didn't fancy all the expense. After all, the average wedding now costs around 拢15,000. Not that much less than we paid for our first house.
Nobody put pressure on us to marry, not even the parents. Co-habitation is rife today, but it wasn't quite so common 22 years ago. I remember one friend telling me that, when she mentioned she lived with her partner, people imagined it was one long sexual extravaganza, rather than sharing the shopping.
One day, for instance, a former colleague rang me out of the blue. We caught up with each other's news. 'And are you married yet?' he asked. 'No, but I'm living with someone.' There was a long pause. 'No need to boast about it, old girl,' he eventually said. How times have changed.
So why did we finally decide to get married? Interestingly, that's what everyone's asked us. Our next-door neighbours are in their late twenties and, after living together for just a year, they married three weeks after us. Big wedding, video, Frank Sinatra soundalike at the reception, honeymoon in the Maldives. I bet no-one's asked them why they got married. When you're young, everyone assumes you're doing it for love. They seem to stop assuming that when you're approaching middle age.
So why? Well, partly the September 11th effect. All those people making final phone calls to tell people they loved them. Partly Steve reaching 'a significant age' - and starting to think about things like pensions and wills. But really it just seemed right.
Once we'd decided to do it, we immediately knew where we were going to do it. For the past 17 years, we've holidayed in Orkney. So we rang the registrar in Kirkwall, plucked a date out of the air - August 12th, The Glorious Twelfth, as it happened - and fixed to see her when we arrived.
We told no one else. We didn't want a fuss. We decided on our witnesses - Mrs Omand, our B&B landlady, and my old schoolfriend Angela, who had already arranged to join us for the holiday. We told Mrs Omand to keep the 12th free, and told Angela to pack a frock as we might do something special.
In Kirkwall, we went to see the registrar. No, there wouldn't be any guests, we said. No photographer. No wedding ring. And I wouldn't be changing my name. 'So why are you getting married?' she asked.
After breakfast kippers on August 12th, we finally told Mrs Omand and Angela. Then we went for a coastal walk in glorious sunshine. We changed and went down to the Town Hall. And, as we waited for the five-minute ceremony to start, Anne and Sid, two Orkney friends, walked past. 'We're just getting married - do you want to come?' we asked.
So we did have guests, after all. And photographs - everyone else had a camera. And an excellent wedding lunch. We even had a honeymoon of sorts, listening to the fog-horn booming outside our rented croft on North Ronaldsay, the most northerly Orkney island.
When I finally got a signal for my mobile phone, I rang my mother - the only one of our parents still alive. She was ecstatic. 'Now I can really call Steve my son-in-law,' she said. And she asked - as everyone has asked since - 'Does it feel any different?' 'Ask me again,' I said, ' when we've had time to get to know each other.'
We sent a postcard to one of our neighbours to tell her our news. And, when we got back, she'd put balloons and 'Just Married' banners all over the front of the house.
'Just married?' said all the other neighbours. 'We thought they'd been married for years.' 'Just married?' said the mother of an old schoolfriend, obviously forgetting how old we were. 'Why? Are they planning to start a family?'"
漏 Clare Jenkins
