Fiona and I lived ‘in sin’ for 41 years before we opted for the ceremony, originally designed for same-sex couples
I have never been the marrying type. Thankfully, nor has the woman with whom I have now lived for twice as many years as I lived without her. I am 63. So is she. We met 41 years ago, moved together into a flat in Tavistock, Devon within a few weeks of meeting as trainee journalists, and have been more or less together ever since.
Marriage, to me, has always been about religion. Two people, in a church, with a minister or a priest in charge of proceedings, making unbreakable vows before God. But I don’t believe in God. I don’t much believe in hypocrisy either, and I have seen enough of other people’s marriages to know that the vows all too often have the solidity of a Boris Johnson manifesto promise. Or, indeed, a Boris Johnson marriage vow, or promise to a mistress.
