Life stories

ALISON CATHCART probably has a story or two to tell each weekend down at the local boozer. That’s because she’s head registrar at Westminster register office, which holds the birth, death and marriage records for an array of famous names including Joan Collins, Brooklyn Beckham, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

For the two-parter Births, Deaths And Marriages, cameras have been given full access to the register office, which until recently was based in Old Marylebone Town Hall, so that we can be party to the full spectrum of real-life drama that is simply a working day for the staff there.

In 22 years in the role, she’s conducted about 5,000 weddings, and despite a large number of people divorcing nowadays, the number of people getting married hasn’t declined.

“We see people getting married the second, third time, it’s not that uncommon – people want love in their lives and, they want to celebrate the fact that they found it,” she says.

In the first episode, Alison – who registered Prince George’s birth – conducts a wedding for Hollie and Simon, who have to pluck volunteers from the street to be witnesses.

Meanwhile, Tommy Hanover presides over the wedding of Jennifer and Dave, who have been together for ten years. He believes the reasons for people choosing to get married have changed.

“One of the main reasons that people choose to get married these days is purely love – because they don’t have to,” he explains. “There’s no societal obligation or no legal obligation or financial obligation to get married.”

One of the biggest changes came in 2005, with the introduction of civil partnerships, and registrar Patricia Gordon admits that her views have changed in her 28 years in the job.

“Before I met Tommy, I, this might sound horrible, but I wouldn’t entertain a gay person. Meeting Tommy has changed a lot of my ways, possibly attitude.

Tommy made me understand that a gay person is just an ordinary person,”

she says. “I’d love for Tommy to find his soulmate, one day, and I hope it will be soon. And when that happens, the person to marry him, to his soulmate would have to be me, nobody else.”

‘IS that your final answer?” It’s a question that’s going to sound unexpectedly poignant as Chris Tarrant presents the last-ever episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

After nearly 16 years, this one-time ratings topper is being retired. It’s going out in style as celebrity contestants play for their chosen charities.

Tonight’s pairings are The Hobbit actor James Nesbitt and hidden cameraman Dom Joly, Olympic cyclist Chris Hoy and comedian Kevin Bridges, and Hairy Biker Dave Myers and Countdown’s Rachel Riley.

If the last two in particular sound like an odd pairing, they did recently compete against each other on Strictly Come Dancing. Let’s hope their general knowledge is better than their paso doble.

CAROLINE FLACK came in for a lot of, well, flack when she embarked upon a relationship with a youthful Harry Styles, of One Direction, but was that 15-year age gap really that shocking in the grand scheme of things?

Not if the people in the documentary She’s 78, He’s 39: Age Gap Love are anything to go by. They include Marilyn, who met her husband William when she was 45 and he was only 16.

The pair’s relationship was under pressure from the start, with friends and neighbours pouring scorn, but they’ve had the last laugh as they’re still going strong now.

Other couples are Edna (79) and Simon (39), who met over their mutual love of organ music, Mike (74) and Lindsey (33) who have just had a baby; and 58-year-old Gary, who enjoys clubbing with wife Kate, who’s half his age.