EXCLUSIVE
MACCLESFIELD'S first gay couple to tie the knot will do so the minute the law changes.
Lifelong lovers Sylvia and Sigrid Rutishauser-James, who combined their surnames by deed poll six years ago, have booked their wedding for 9.30am - the first ever local "civil partnership" - on Wednesday, December 21.
Three other couples will exchange vows throughout the same day.
This week Sylvia and Sigrid talked exclusively about their joy over finally being a legal couple and their triumph over "no longer being invisible".
Retired nurse Sylvia, 62, of Westbrook Drive, said: "It's still hard to believe that it is real!
"We always hoped that we would have a place in society but I feared that we wouldn't live to see the day."
As part of the new laws gay couples will enjoy the same rights as hetrosexual couples: state pension entitlement, social security benefits and tax credits as well as being able to register the death of their partner for the FIRST time.
Sylvia said: "Before these new laws, if I died, Sigrid would have had to contact my next of kin to register my death.
"But now she could do it herself which goes some way to undoing the untruths of the old laws."
One of the "untruths" that Sylvia is talking about is not having a place on any official forms.
She said: "One of the things that partnership will give us is legal status in society.
"At present I have to tick single, widowed, divorced or married and I am not any of those things - I can't tell you what it means both to me, and Sigrid, to have a place on a form.
"We will no longer be invisible."
It is an extraordinary year for the couple as they are celebrating a multitude of things.
They have known each other for 40 years, committed to each other 30 years ago and have been living together for 25 years.
Sigrid, 58, a retired lecturer in Physiology, said: "It is a fabulous and special year for us."
Consequently, the pair have been celebrating ALL year long which culminated in a party for 120 close friends and family members last month.
The road to tying the knot has been a long one, however, as the couple first met in Namirembe, in Uganda, when Sigrid was on a gap year and Sylvia was working as a nurse for the Medical Research Council.
They didn't see each other for four years and accidently met in Cardiff, where Sylvia is originally from, and they kept in touch.
Sigrid, a keen gardener, said: "We grew slowly in friendship and it was very much a slow cooking thing."
At the time both couples were unsure what a homosexual relationship was because they said society didn't have the language for being gay.
Sylvia, said: "Even as a nurse I didn't have the awareness that women fell in love with women.
"Whenever homosexuality was talked about it was always about men in public toilets and we were neither men nor public toilets.
"It was never mentioned in terms of the day to day things like getting the shopping or doing the washing."
Sigrid said: "Pennies started dropping and we both knew we wanted to live with each other and that we belonged together."
The lovers said that they didn't expect to be a couple as it "wasn't like that then" but for them when they "committed" to each other 30 years ago was when they "really" got married.
Sigrid said: "The civil ceremony will be a ratification or a verification of something that has been in place for a very long time."
They finally decided to set up home together, as a couple, in Macclesfield 25 years ago as Sylvia was teaching nursing at Macclesfield College.
Sigrid said: "We have always had very supportive neighbours which has been a blessing as gay couples can often run into difficulties with the people around them.
"In our little corner of Macclesfield it has been a very stable community as it has been the same people living here since we moved in.
"We have never regretted living here as the people of Macclesfield have always very supportive and generous."
Times weren't always so good though as soon-to-be-weds said that there were dark days in the Eighties when the national media were cruel to gays and what they termed "homosexual lifestyles".
Sylvia said: "You would read and hear bad things but that seemed a world away to us living round the back of Sainsbury's, or Macclesfield Infirmary as it was then."
As for the ceremony itself it is a work in progress as the couple are still arranging what will take place but they say it will be something that will represent them as a couple.
One thing is for certain, though, and that is that the couple will be signing on the dotted line come December 21.
Sylvia said: "I have never been able to fill in a form, properly, so when the idea of signing on line was mooted, we have decided to pass on that and use a pen instead - as we are both luddites, anyway."
