Mark, 71, and Andrew, 73, met at university in Scotland and have been together for almost 50 years. They live in London

Mark was deeply unhappy when he started at St Andrews University in Scotland in 1967. He had grown up feeling conflicted about his sexuality, and though sex between two men had been decriminalised in England and Wales that summer, it remained illegal in the rest of the UK, and attitudes towards gay people remained extremely hostile. “Sex education taught me that my feelings were abnormal. I was waiting for the phase to end,” he says. In his first week, he met Andrew, who had moved from the US to study. “We didn’t know each other well. He was on the fringes of my social group,” says Mark, 71. Andrew found Mark attractive, but had never considered a relationship with another man. “I’d been in a fraternity and had girlfriends. Being gay hadn’t really crossed my mind,” he says.

After completing his degree, Mark moved to London in 1972 and found work in the film industry. “I realised my sexuality was nothing to be ashamed of and told all my friends,” he says. Andrew, 73, spent a year in Virginia after his studies, before moving to Edinburgh to complete a PhD. By the early 70s, he too had begun to explore his sexuality, and was secretary of the Edinburgh University GaySoc. “Some friends told me that Mark had come out. They said: ‘He’s done just about everything bar putting out a personal ad to tell everyone he’s queer.’” In the autumn of 1974, he called Mark. “I was going for dinner with a mutual friend of ours, so I invited him to come along,” says Mark. “I spotted Andrew on Shaftesbury Avenue and he looked totally different. He’d shaved off the Gilbert and Sullivan sideburns he’d had at university.”