177. Part 2.

March 17th 1998, was the culmination of that watershed moment six years earlier, March 1993.

I'd already been on my Transitional journey some two years, when I first met the man I'd spend the next seven years with...a man!

He, like I, was raised a Roman candle i.e. a Roman Catholic, albeit he a lapsed one.

We'd been together some five years, when he was confronted by a friend on a night out, 'Well, would you marry Frances,' 'Yes I defiantly would, he replied, but how can we?' Back in 1997 there was no such thing as a Civil Partnership, nor does the Roman Catholic Church look like it's about to adopt this 'Love that dare not speak it's name,' any time soon.

I got to it and made enquiries. First I contacted a Gay friendly Evangelical church, who then refereed me to a Father X, based at Westminster cathedral.

'Hello Father X, I'm Frances, my partner and I are Catholics and we'd like to marry however...Ehhh...he's male and I'm a Transsexual.' 'Come and see me next week Frances, we can better talk this over then,' said the calm and reassuring voice at the other end of the line.

At 8pm, Father X opened the cathedral's back door in Frances Street (good omen I thought) and bid me come in. He was blind, though I'd never have guessed but for the fact that he mentioned it, as he weaved through the cathedral's labyrinthine as easily as any sighted person might, well...he'd been living there some twenty-five years now.

I told him of our wish and dilemma, that I'd been training for the Priesthood from fourteen to seventeen, before jumping ship and joining a Christian commune. He asked about my present faith and satisfied with my answer, offered that we should meet again with my partner.

A month later both C and I met Father X, again in the evening through the little back door. No one else was to be seen as he took us first to his room and then to a side chapel. He gave us both a long hard grilling, and was pleased to learn our relationship was built on solid ground, not the shifting sands of mere sexual attraction.

He agreed to marry us...but it would have to be in stealth.

'What does the Catholic Church think about this, what does Cardinal Hume (the then head of the Catholic church in England) think,' I asked. 'Between us Frances, we are fully supportive, you are two people who simply and sincerely love one another; however...you'll appreciated there'd be wildfire if we ever acknowledged this publicly.' To say I was blown back by this statement would be putting it mildly, and to say I was delighted, trifling.

Cardinal Hume was renowned and admired for his literalism, and more than any Pope before or since, dragged the Roman Catholic church into the then, 20th Century.

And so, on March 17th 1998 at 9pm in that little side chapel of Westminster Cathedral, all hush hush, we took our wedding vows. C slipped a wedding ring upon my finger and kissed the Bride, as did Father X.

It was a simple affair, we'd decided against having witnesses and because of the sensitive (nay illegal) nature of the marriage, there was no signing of the register nor marriage certificate, that would have compromised us all.

We celebrated with a scrumptious late dinner at The Grill Room at The Cafe Royal, when we arrived home I insisted C carry me over the threshold; twice.

I often wonder what C's doing these days, is he happy, is he well, I'd like to think so.

What I'm reading in bed...

Attention All Shipping: Charlie Connelly.