Many years ago, like most kids of my generation, I was sent to school. I still remember the primary school – the vaulted, slightly dusty corridor with a dark shiny floor, and the dim secluded annex for coats and scarves next to the first classroom door.

Each child was instructed to use a particular peg to hang their coat. This was probably the first game we played at the school, a game we went along with. I never recall anyone questioning why we had to use the same peg each time, not me. I suppose in hindsight it was an early lesson in bureaucratic efficiency and obedience.

Anyway, each peg was identified by a unique picture above it. Colourful and bold, the images were of easily recognisable cartoon-style scenes and characters. A giraffe perhaps, or a church? Possibly there was a policeman (friendly but big), a nurse (female), a doctor (male), or a roaring open fire. I don’t really recall. All I recall is my peg’s picture, the icon signifying my place in the array of coats. It showed two chaps, two business men perhaps, outfitted in identical pinstripe suits, bowler hats and bristly moustaches, apparently stepping out together on a nice walk.

Now, bearing in mind I was five, and that this was in 1976, I look back and wonder that I just assumed without  any conversation or self-questioning, that the icon above my peg depicted a male married couple, having  a stroll and being reasonably happy and settled in their relationship. I seem to remember mentioning this to someone – whether pupil or staff I don’t know – and remember being corrected into believing the two gentlemen of the coathook icon were, in all probability, friends, and not married as I had quite innocently assumed.

In retrospect, I feel I was ahead of the curve, and that same-sex marriage clearly did not seem unnatural or peculiar to me. So the idea that it would undermine heterosexual marriage seems utterly wrong.