Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 April 2011 05:37:53
Yesterday TOH and I set the date for our "big day". Our Civil Partnership is to be in July 2013. That seems way in the future but seemed the most appropriate day in a 5 week window. We celebrated by going over to Bletchley Park and round the museum there....finding out to our suprise that the mansion can be hired for ceremonies and civil partnerships, (something we're going to look into further to see if there is anyway that our budget might give us a dream location).
The first two sentences of the last paragraph may have left you going ???? Who ends up with a five week window that far in advance? Well, let me explain because it illustrates the contraints life sometimes places upon us. Firstly, there is Third Party to consider. She has made it clear that whilst she accepts my choices in life she doesn't always have to like them. Until she turns 18 and moves out to go to uni next year she has to be my primary consideration. That means that the ealiest that TOH and I could get "civilled" is October 2012. Now, October 2012 is going to come after a process of change in my life. At the moment there are two likely roads I could go down. Whichever I end up in October 2012 is likely to see me in a "new institution", (be that as student or teacher). So we are into the constraints of the academic year. If you want a honeymoon of two weeks you have Christmas, Easter or the Summer. Well, Christmas would come at the end of a first term of change....a term when I will need to be focused and getting used to whatever adjustment I find happening. Easter...well...Easter is a small window which has lots of activity in it if you are a person of faith. That leaves the summer 2013 as the earliest possible time it would fit. Now, because the complexities of one possible route, I want to by autumn 2013 to be able to say this is my legal as well as soul partner . That means that if TOH and I are getting "civilled" summer 2013 is not only the earliest possible time it is sensible it is also the latest possible time it is possible.
Now within that there are other constraints on how far the window stretches. If I am still teaching within FE the earliest it is sensible is the first week in July, because of the tasters for new students and so forth that take place at the end of June. However, if things are similar to this year the first weekend in July is problematic because that weekend is around Conference. It also is around "graduation time", (something to be bourne in mind as our guest list is likely to contain Methodists who may be wanting to get to conference and academics who need to be around for graduations). As the graduations sometimes go on to the end of the second week of July that weekend is the opening of our window. In terms of the end of the window that is A Level results day, (something I will need to be there for if that is the route I end up going down). This the "ceremony window" closed two weeks before this, at the beginning of August.
Ok, I hear you say v. interesting, but why didn't you wait a year before setting a date? Isn't all this a little premeture? Um, no...because of the "process" I will be going through over the next year I want to be able to talk about my relationship with TOH in a way which indicates we are life partners, just not ones who have been able to go through a service of commitment yet. I want to be able to talk about when that service of commitment will be and for their to be no ambiguity about what she means and is to me when/ if the subject is raised.
Going to Bletchley Park was an amazing experience, and one which in light of the days earlier decisions was very moving at one point and for others at another. For those who don't know Bletchley Park was the code breaking centre for the British in the 2nd world war. It now houses a museum manned mainly by volunteers. The focus of the museum in to provide an access into social history and a history of the site which is patriotic but not jingoistic - it is providing an appropriate memory to the dead and in places speaks of Britains shameful past aswell as its great one.
Anyway moving moment number one - going round the exhibition we came across a volunteer telling another visitor that a photograph on display was the volunteer meeting the German who shot him down during the second world war. A number of us stopped and listened as this brave vetran told his story of being shot down and captured and the conditions he was kept in. There was no malice in this man, his view was that both he and the German had been doing their jobs. It was incredibly moving to hear this amazing man's story.
Then moving moment number two was when we read a short biography of Alan Turin, the code breaker who was responsible for breaking the Enigma Code. TOH who is a mathematician by trade knew the story, I knew only what she had told me. This hero was awarded the OBE for his services but then, for a long time disappeared from history after taking his own life. The reason he took an apple and laced it with cyanide was he was dismissed from his job and then taken to court and convicted for having a same sex relationship. Apparently in court he gave no defence other than to say he felt there was nothing wrong with such relationships. This happened within my parents lifetime!
Reading that, and walking round with TOH - who in another time and another place could have been Alan Turin, made me stop and think. TOH and I have been blessed in being able to come to the decisions we have because of what others went through. Just as we would not have had our freedom today if it had not been for people like the RAF vetran and Alan Turin we would not, as a same sex couple, have had the freedom to legally enter a relationship if it had not been for the bravery of people like Alan Turin when he gave the honest answer rather than some slippery defence in court.
We really do hope we manage to have our ceremony there because not only is there a link to so many parts of our heritage in the place, particularly TOH's academic discipline there it would also provide the answer to a problem based on current attitudes to same sex relationships within the church. TOH and I fully accept that as things stand, (and even if the law changes....because it takes time to change what Connexion says churches can and can't do), we cannot get "civilled" in a church. However, if we go to a venue which allows for civil ceremonies we will be able to have the totally secular civil ceremony, (where we get legally "civilled"), straight before going into a religious ceremony of blessing....thus, effectively being able to have a "service". We are taking the view that in this situation TAZ is occuring and for a time the secular place is being turned into a specifically holy place....a kind of church whilst we are there and the ceremony and blessing are taking place. This, we figure, is a going to be the creative approach we need which will enable us to lessen the pain of not being able to be on "home soil" whilst maintaining integrity and respecting the statues of conference. Anyway, that's the dream...we're still looking into if it will become reality.
Sorry, a very long post and quite personal....but I think important because it explains to those who don't understand all the complexities involved in life what is going on and why timings are as they are for somethings. TOH and I would love to get "civilled" tomorrow, but that isn't possible because Third Party matters too. I hope it has also helped people recognise the tensions and practicalities as well as the excitement that exists in our lives at the moment. Change and uncertainty are the watchwords of the next year, particularly. In this situation it is lovely to have something solid to look forward to.