Ours was an unusual courtship to say the least. We took no hand in hand moonlight walks along the riverside. We had no intimate suppers in dimly lit restaurants where the sound of violins played in the background and the waiters were discreet. We didn't even have our own special love song.

What we had were constant rows, dating other partners and on many occasions failed to turn up for arranged dates. Yet when it came down to it I knew that I loved her.

One night coming home from the pub I don't know what possessed me but I proposed to Diane. It wasn't one of those down on one-knee proposals found in Mills and Boone novels. No, it was in a darkened, vandalised telephone box behind the council flats where Diane lived with her mother.

"Ask me when you are sober," she said pushing me out of the way and going in slamming the door behind her.

It certainly wasn't the answer I had been expecting. The following evening I waited outside the factory where she worked.

"Well?" I said.

I gave a yell that frightened the nearby pigeons into flight as she said yes. She told me later that she had been up most of the night wondering if I would ask her again.

"One moment Sir. There seems to be a slight discrepancy here."

The registrar, a portly little man, wearing a pinstripe suit that had seen better days and carrying an air of importance about him, pointed to the signature on the consent form, which I had just handed him.

"You say that the young lady you intend to marry is called Taylor?"

"Yes. That's correct. Miss Diane Taylor."

"I see. It's just that on this consent form we have a different name as the person giving permission for the wedding to proceed."

"Yes I know. That's the name of her auntie who has looked after Diane since birth."

I knew that Diane had been offered up for adoption when she was born and her auntie had taken her. As far as Diane was concerned she was her mother.

"Have you brought proof of guardianship or a certificate of adoption?"

I had no such documentation with me or even knew if any existed. Diane had just told me to call in the registrar's with the paperwork.

"I must see either one of these documents because without it, I'm afraid, we cannot proceed."

That evening sitting in Diane's home I explained what I had been told. Diane's auntie shook her head, as she absentmindedly stroked Tiddles, the grey tabby cat curled up on her lap.

"I've never had anything on paper. Your mother wanted to give you away to strangers so I took you. You were such a beautiful baby."

She gave Diane a loving smile.

"I wasn't going to let the social services take you away."

"I'll go round there in the morning and explain."

Diane declared in a voice that booked no argument.

"I tried that, love," I said in a slow clear voice as though explaining to a small child that his trip to the zoo had been cancelled.

"As you are under 21 we have to get permission from a parent or legal guardian."

I could see the look of sorrow beginning to cloud her beautiful face.

"There are no exceptions made to this rule. Honest Diane I tried my best. But nothing else will do."

"I'll make us all a cup of coffee."

Gently shooing the cat off her lap Diane's auntie went out into the kitchen. She didn't want the young couple to see her cry.

"What can we do?" Diane asked, the disappointment evident in her voice. "The church is booked. Everything is arranged. I don't want to wait for another eight months till I am 21."

I could almost physically feel the hurt I knew Diane was going through. It was one of the few times in my life that I felt completely useless. I hugged her to me and as I stroked her long dark hair I tried desperately to think of a solution.

"There is a way we can sort out this problem." Auntie said as she came from the kitchen, having wiped her eyes.

As she passed around the coffees she began to speak.

The following Saturday morning Diane and I set off for the bus station. As we walked along neither of us spoke. Sometimes we looked at each other and I saw the faint glimmer of a somewhat nervous smile cross her face. After a 20-minute drive we alighted on the other side of town.

"Shall we go for a coffee first?" I asked hopefully. "We've got plenty of time."

Completely ignoring me Diane searched through her handbag for the scrap of paper her auntie had given her the night before. Starting to panic, thinking she had lost it, Diane frantically began to search her pockets. She was getting extremely nervous and it was beginning to show.

"Relax Diane, please. Try to relax. It's definitely in your bag. I watched you put it in there last night."

The certainty in my voice seemed to have a soothing effect on her. Anxiously searching her bag once again she was relieved to find the scrap of paper stuck down one of the side pockets.

"We'll have a coffee when we have finished John," Diane looked at me and for the first time noticed how nervous I appeared to be.

"Look, you go and have a drink or something." She gripped my hand tightly. "I can manage this on my own. Let's meet back here in an hour."

No matter how much I wanted to I couldn't leave Diane to do this on her own.

"No I can wait. Now what's that address?"

Gibson House was a tall 12-story block of flats in the middle of a council estate surrounded by equally tall identical looking buildings. A drunkard's nightmare trying to find ones way, I thought to myself. Some of the windows on the lower floors were boarded up; others had metal bars over them cemented into the brickwork.

Naturally the lifts were broken so we both started climbing the stairs. The walls were covered in graffiti and hearts proclaiming "JJ luvs BD".

On the seventh floor Diane and I walked along the balcony and paused outside number 26. The net curtain at the window was grey with dirt. The number six was hanging precariously by a bent nail off the door. Loud music blared from the hole in the door where the letterbox had once been.

I looked at Diane as if to question her. She smiled at me. I gave her a quick kiss and a hug, then knocked loudly on the door and stood back. There was no immediate reply so I knocked louder.

A woman swung open the door.

"What do you want?" she shouted over the music coming from somewhere inside the flat.

The woman, dressed in a baggy flowered dress, a cardigan, which appeared to have stretched in the wash, and carpet slippers with a pompom missing from one glared at Diane. She flicked the cigarette she had been smoking over the balcony without any thought to whoever happened to be passing underneath. She leant against the jamb of the door and folded her arms.

"Are you Betty Taylor?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Are you?" Diane's voice remained calm and quiet.
"What if I am? What do you want to know for?"
"Just answer the question please."
"Yes I am."

Diane gave a seep drawn out sigh. Taking the form from her handbag she looked intently at the woman before her.
"Sign this for me please."

She offered the form and a pen to the woman. The woman quickly scanned the form.
"What is this?"
"It's a marriage consent form. As I am under 21 and as you are my birth mother I need your permission. So sign it."

The woman started to speak but Diane just pointed at the form. I stood behind her saying nothing. What was there to say when my fiancée was meeting her mother for the first time?

A shaky hand scribbled a signature. Diane took the form and put it back in her handbag. The woman started to speak but Diane was already walking away and not looking back.