THE Births, Marriages and Deaths columns of The Times, which have carried family announcements for almost 221 years, begin featuring a new style of notice today.

Three short advertisements in the newspaper appear under the heading Civil Partnerships on the day that the legislation permitting “gay marriages” comes into force.

But the first people to announce their civil partnership ceremony in our famous columns are not one of the celebrity couples, such as Sir Elton John and David Furnish, who have announced their engagements. Instead the honour has gone to Graham Ferguson and Christopher Heyd-Smith, a retired and “very private” couple who live in Lyme Regis, Dorset.

Their notice states simply: “The Civil Partnership will take place on January 30, 2006, at The Guildhall, Lyme Regis, Dorset, between Graham and Christopher, of Lyme Regis, Dorset.”

Two other couples — Jakki Turnbull and Sheila Van Dorst, and John Walker and Ghani Jantan — have also chosen the columns of The Times to announce their engagements.

But Mr Ferguson and Mr Heyd-Smith are the first couple to announce the day and place of their ceremony. The date, Mr Ferguson said, was as close as they could make it to the anniversary of the day when they met, on January 28, 1972.

“We have been living together very happily for 34 years, we have our wills made out properly to benefit each other, but we feel it is a privilege to be able to have our partnership legally recognised,” said Mr Ferguson, 67, who was a first officer on a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker during the Falklands conflict.

“There are important legal and inheritance aspects involved, but I personally believe very strongly that a lot of people — not necessarily us — have fought very hard to change attitudes.

“When I was a young man being gay was illegal, so an awful lot has changed in our lifetimes. After all that struggle it would be churlish to not take advantage of this change in the law. We feel privileged to be able to do it.”

Mr Ferguson and Mr Heyd-Smith, 59, do not regard themselves as campaigning trailblazers and intend to have a small ceremony attended only by their witnesses and Heather Downey, the senior registrar for the area.

Many of their friends, including the married couple they had Sunday lunch with yesterday, are unaware that they are to become legal partners next month.

Mr Heyd-Smith, who is retired from the retail trade, said: “We hope other people will say, ‘If those two did it, we can do it too’. It’s very nice after all these years to be able to look people straight in the eye, not to have to hide behind anything.”

It is expected that between 800 and 1,000 couples will apply to register their partnerships today. After 15 days they can sign a civil partnership “schedule” before the registrar and two witnesses.

The first available date for a ceremony is December 21 in England and Wales and December 20 in Scotland.

Britain’s “gay wedding” capital is to be Brighton, where 400 couples have pre-registered for a civil partnership. Three couples will become the first to “marry” in the city in simultaneous ceremonies at 8am on December 21. In the City of Westminster, in London, 140 couples — 80 per cent of them male — have booked dates. In Sheffield 58 couples — 35 female and 23 male — have applied for ceremonies. And in Edinburgh 44 male couples and 32 female couples have booked their big day.

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