Other Lives: George Walton and Reg Mickisch

"The loving partnership of George Walton and Reg Mickisch, who died within weeks of each other earlier this summer, aged 94 and 84 respectively, was the defining feature of both their lives.
"They had been together since meeting in London in 1949. For the first 18 years of their relationship, its very existence was illegal, and yet it – and they – survived long enough to enjoy having the state "marry" them, in February 2006, in the first same-sex civil partnership to be conducted in their local register office, in the small market town of Machynlleth, mid-Wales..."

From The Guardian's Other Lives obituaries section.
'Obituaries pages traditionally describe and celebrate the lives of the great and good, the famous and infamous. There is another type of life that deserves noticing: people less in the public eye, or lives lived beyond formal recognition.'