01x02 - The A*DS Generation

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Session one

with Jeremy.

When I turned 18,

I ran away from home
to live with two guys.

And, So shacking away,

I couldn't get enough, basically.

I'd only recently lost my virginity,

so I was literally gagging for it
as the phrase out.

And I kept getting chest infections.

And I went to my daughter
and he was saying like an insult because.

Because I sucked men's penises and
therefore I stop sucking men's penises.

I wouldn't get a sore throat.

So I changed doctors,
and the first thing my new doctor did

was sent me for an HIV test. I.

I worked in a sterile supply

unit, General Hospital,
and I went into work and said

to the sister in charge of the unit,
I've been sent for a test.

He must have got on megaphone
and wandered around the city unit, going,

Jeremy, he's got A*DS.

Because a couple of days later,

two reporters from the local newspaper
turned up on my doorstep.

And that weekend, and I think it was page
seven was A*DS,

suspect cleaners, surgeons, knives.

The headline was doubly incorrect

because I didn't clean surgeons knives
because they're all disposable.

And I wasn't positive at that time.

But that's how my father found out
about this guy.

He hasn't spoken to me since.

The number of people

being checked for
the disease, A*DS has doubled.

The figures are simply frightening.

Since the HIV test became available,
I went to one of the doctors

and was very friendly with and said, well,
I think I've got to try this test

though I was very healthy.


and no sign of the disease abating.

Kerry phoned me up
and said he was actually positive.

I was actually stunned.

I've had had nights
where I've had sex with four, five people,

some people Kerry was never, ever
into anything like that.

And doctor came in and he had an HIV test
the last time we were here.

The results were positive.

And I'm

sitting there saying, I'm sorry,
I've been hitting the cast.

I'm deeply shocked
if we don't do something about it.

Hundreds of thousands of people
are going to die.

Might

become a threat to us.

Everybody infected with this disease
was going to get A*DS and die.

How safe are the British public
at the moment from an epidemic?

Churches that denounced the sin of Sodom
have a right to denounce it.

No, I personally wouldn't
want to work with somebody who has A*DS.

Heading for an A*DS expl*si*n.

An inalienable right to be g*y.

They will be not a community
in the country, untouched,

but not remotely near having a cure.

The Princess of Wales

has opened
Britain's first hospital ward for A*DS.

It frightened people
and when people are scared, they attack.

You are literally fighting for your life.

By 1991, we're told
that would be a million cases.

The occasion?

When?

When were you diagnosed?

Well, it's

now seven years since the disease A*DS
was first discovered in the United States.

Yet the still seems no hope of halting
the dramatic increase

in cases expected over the next few years.

A*DS was now officially an epidemic.

The threat posed by the k*ller
disease is increasing day by day

in London, up to a third of all g*y
men were reported to be infected.

But despite the risks,
the capital still drew young men from

all over the country seeking a safer place
to explore their sexuality.

I felt very oppressed
where I was living in the Midlands

and like a lot of young g*y men,

we somehow get attracted to London,

even for a very early age.

I was fascinated
and wanted to move to London.

When I

became a nurse there, we were all lined up
to have our uniforms inspected.

We had this matron,
she did this speech and she said,

there is a place in London called Soho
that is full of deviants.

And I just remember sat there going,
where's that?

Coming to London

was quite a major change in my life.

The Soho set at that time
was very interesting.

These little clubs, the challenge of

going to a place and the bravery
it took actually.

It's something you find yourself
extremely popular

as well. You.

I was originally
in the sexual health clinic, and of course

there had been some cases of HIV, but
this is when we were seeing more come in.

And, you know, of course,
then it was disproportionately g*y men.

Somebody would come in
with their partners, you know, it's such a

and it's got my, my boyfriend can't
breathe and, you know, gasping for breath.

So it was like, what the hell is going on?

Most of

the information on HIV was still primarily

g*y Switchboard or Terrence Higgins
Trust or people like that.

People just didn't know about it. Hello?

Terrence Higgins. Higgins trust.
Can I help you?

Intimacy and trust is for anybody
concerned about A*DS or affected by A*DS.

We get a lot of calls from people
who don't understand how A*DS is spread.

They're still worried that they could
catch A*DS from swimming pools,

for instance.

We were seeing an exponential growth,

and that always looks terrifying.

We were frightened
we would lose all our men,

that vast numbers of g*y men would die.

Terrence Higgins
Trust had already published a whole range

of safer sex leaflets by this point,
but nothing from the government.

The Department of Health
did want to do something.

The issue was for a long time
that other areas of government

didn't take things too seriously.

The difficulty that you had was that
there was nobody openly g*y in government

at that time, and nobody wanted
to give a hoot about the g*y community,

but it really did feel at times
like we were yelling into a big, big void.

Ron Fellows, let me go switchboard
and help you.

Calls were always cries for information.

What is it?

How do you get it?

How can I tell if I've got it?

If I've got it, I'm
definitely going to die a.

If you get it, you will die.

We were at the really sharp end,
and there was that sense

that we're on our own.

I was wondering whether you could start
by saying

something about the,
Terrence Higgins Trust.

That was the chair of the trust.

It became my entire life.

I mean, totally dedicated to.

So how did you meet George?

George came to Tenzing as.

Just volunteer
to help with work with drug users

and and was instantly fascinated with him.

Apart from being tall and good
looking, had an electrifying personality

that galvanized
and fascinated people around him.

It was a lot of fun. Made me laugh.

A physical relationship was wonderful.

I just fell in love with him.

One night

in the car and, in walks this young man,

all dressed
in white and looking extremely gorgeous.

And it just amazing
the things that come over you.

So stupid.

That's the man I'm
going to spend the rest of my life with.

That moment in time.

It was.

It may seem awfully romantic, but it's.

If all the noise went
and all the bustle went.

And it was just there
I knew I was falling in love.

I mean, there's no doubt about that.

It was, I think, one of those
fairytale romances. And.

So you said that you were HIV positive.

I was positive, but I was.

Well, George hadn't even had a test.

And after we've been together well,
and having very safe sex inside,

he'd have a test.

And that's
when he discovered he was positive.

Laboratory tests show an estimated 20
to 50,000 people

in England and Wales
have been infected with the HIV virus.

And it's quite possible
for someone who has the virus to be

totally unaware of the fact for some time,

thousands and thousands of people

who are already infected with this disease

and everybody infected with this disease

was going to get A*DS and die.

It was fast

approaching my 20th birthday,
and it was a Friday night.

And, I got talking to this guy

and halfway through the night,
I just felt incredibly sick.

And I said, I don't feel too good.

And and he said, well,
let me take you to the hospital.

And I said, no, not
so I don't worry about it.

And on the Sunday morning,

which is my 20th birthday,

I was just gone by then,

when I was kind of like, conscious.

My brain was just so exploding.

I didn't really know what was happening.

So I went to the hospital,

and they did X-rays, and they took bloods,

and they instantly said, this is PCP.

And they admitted me immediately.

Whilst I was there, the doctors were,

basically
saying they didn't expect me to live.

And I was just so adamant
that I wasn't about to die.

That then takes me into my life with A*DS.

In Britain,

the average survival
time for patients is just over 12 months.

I've had to tell four people
that they have A*DS this week,

and that's not an easy thing
to have to tell anybody.

This is just one of several centers
seeing patients at the moment,

and it's going to get worse.

I was dealing with this.

Now patients are on the wards.

You know, this was was a massive problem.

Extraordinary numbers of patients
in hospital that we were dealing with

without a national public health strategy.

Hospitals were confused about how to treat
the growing volume of patients.

Unfortunately, a lot of patients
were being poorly cared for.

You know, often
people would be shoved into side rooms.

The care was not was
not was not good enough.

There was a lot of fear.

There was a lot of a lot of nurses.

There was actually a disability.

Who is you know, was a proud union member.

Even the unions at the time said
if you're a nurse,

you do not have to look after people
with A*DS, you know?

And later
when people would come to the wards

and they'd just turn away,
I said, I'm not looking after them.

So q*eers.

Somebody had come

onto the ward who had A*DS
somehow had gotten out,

and these families had come together,
said, you've got to move my mother.

There's somebody with A*DS on this ward,
that sort of thing.

And there was a little glass

panel on his door,
and people kept going up

and peering in at the glass
and looking at the A*DS person.

But, yeah, I think we're going down. Why?

I got really angry at that.

Would you please move away from that door?

Just so dehumanizing.

You could get almost
any other kind of disease,

and you wouldn't be judged,
and you wouldn't be left alone like this.

There would be resources poured into it.

There'd be information coming out.
None of that.

Because it was disproportionately g*y men.

It felt like that they didn't give a damn.

I think that if

we hadn't seen an increase in cases
within the heterosexual community,

I think if we hadn't seen it
becoming a global phenomenon,

and you know, traveling across continents,
I think they might've

left it alone.

Many people

still think of A*DS as a g*y plague.

It is not.

Anyone who is sexually active is at risk.

According to official statistics,
in the past 12 months,

the number of heterosexuals with A*DS
has doubled.

Calculations of heterosexual A*DS
show that by the turn of the century,

there'd be 56,000 new cases a year
and more than 1

million carriers.

And so,

because it was beyond the g*y community,

the finding meant that today, something.

The Department of Health, at long

last, were really concerned
about what was happening with A*DS.

The value of the Secretary of State
for Social Services.

Are we confronted with an epidemic
where we suddenly confronted

with a very major and probably the most
major public health problem

that we've faced a century,

with cases
rising in the heterosexual population?

The government now took the step
to address A*DS at a national level.

I think it was important
for the Department of Health

that this was seen as something
which could affect everybody

and would affect everybody
if behavior didn't change.

You had the g*y community activists
clamoring for them to be explicit

about modes of transmission.

But then you had people like Margaret
Thatcher, who didn't even want

the office of the National Survey
to ask questions about people's sex lives.

She was very, very conservative

when it came to any public discussion
of sex and sexuality.

There was always this constant tension
between accuracy and honesty

and making things palatable
for the nice people who ran things

and gave you the money
to do those campaigns.

It's a shame that we couldn't see
what the conversations in government

would have been like.

The revulsion with which these politicians
would have had to discuss

literal sexual practice,

of the kind that you know, appears
in the Bible as forbidden

every sphincter and orifice
would be absolutely against the idea.

I had a meeting in front of health.

I think it was Fowler,
chief medical officer and

I remember the day vividly

because George was diagnosed
as having fully blown A*DS.

I remember

sitting at that meeting in the office and
the table to thank, bursting into tears

and explained what had happened.

George and I came back from the hospital

only cried and talked.

For the huge public health campaign
on which our own government's hopes are

pinned, will gain a new impetus
after Christmas, when anti-A*DS A*DS

advertisements
will be transmitted on television.

It will be massive.

Probably the most concentrated
health education program ever.

The campaign they came up with
was don't dive into the 20 million

pounds public health education campaign
was launched in a blaze of publicity.

There will be a general poster campaign
and a leaflet drop to all.


straightforward messages directed.

That will be accompanied by television
advertising.

To maximize that effect.

Tip it a fraction
more can, in horror film, director

Nicolas Roeg was hired to ensure
the public would feel

the fear.

Trust the flowers the other way.

Tonight, for the first time,
the government took its biggest

public health campaign into people's
sitting rooms.

They're spending millions of pounds
on publicity that's expected to be

more blunt.

Don't die of ignorance, they say.

There is now a danger
which has become a threat to us all.

It is a deadly disease
and there is no known cure.

The virus can be passed

during sexual intercourse
with an infected person.

Anyone can get it.

Man or woman.

So far, it's been confined to small
groups, but it's spreading.

So protect yourself

and read this leaflet when it arrives.

If you ignore A*DS,
it could be the death of you.

So don't die of ignorance.

Don't die of ignorance.

With the big marble slab.

The victim stoned,

which I have since seen referred to
as the A*DS

don't die of the melodrama campaign,
which I think sums it up very, very well.

Actually.

But it was quite frightening

when it was reported you've seen
this advertisement for the first time.

What do you think of it?

Well, we're very glad that it started.

However,
we don't want the population to panic.

It was a lot less offensive than it could
have been, but it was still stigmatizing.

It was still terrifying.

It scared people.

And when people are scared, they attack.

It's the biggest threat to public health
this century.

And some say God's gift to bigots,

sex, death, drugs,

perversity, all sorts of naughtiness
and then retribution.

It was a gift to the tabloids
and oh my goodness, they liked that.

And with a daily readership of over


Britain's tabloids had unparalleled
influence over public opinion.

There was a backlash.

We were seeing that the wider community
was turning on g*y men,

terrible, terrible things being said
by very senior people.

It was the chief constable of Manchester

who said that
we were in a cesspit of our own making.

It is a form of human behavior
that is a weakness

in the fabric of society.

It was outside a g*y club
in the center of Manchester.

We were leaving and just over
the road was a group of 12 loves.

We don't even want five yards.

And there was a charge.

And get the q*eers.

And we were kicked
ahead, covered in blood.

And I went to the police station
to report the incident.

And I was abused by the police in a way.

I just feel so angry about.

They were trying

to talk me into making a statement,
and I was insisting I ought to do it.

And in the end, it came to nothing.

A new opinion
polled throw some interesting

light on people's attitudes to A*DS.

One person in three

thinks people with A*DS should be isolated
from the rest of society.

Getting on for half
are in favor of new laws

to restrict h*m* behavior.

Fear can really
bring out the worst in people, but

I don't think they probably anticipated
the campaign was going to cause that.

To this day, I have an anger and a fury.

I mean, it would be a hate crime now.

What they put in the press.

Column is getting increasingly tired.

We were talking.

We both decided to be sensible.

For us to have a test.

And we wanted the test done together.

Do you remember the date?

Yes, because it was a friend's birthday
and we forgot his birthday because of it.

And Willis, from December the 8th.

The guy had no need to say anything.

You could tell he was upset.

I was quaking.

You know, it's terrible coming back.
Cold thing.

Come over here.

And he said we got results back.

And he looked to me first
and said, you were positive.

And I must admit, it was it shook me.

And they got to Colin and he said,
you are as well.

And Ethan started

to cry, you know, because the first
time we've ever had a couple

to tell them together, they both were.

Poor guy was in such a state like,
I can't get you a cup of tea.

And this was to the guy, you know.

I mean, I saw him cry.

But I think part of my calm
was actually relief version of.

At least I wasn't just Colin.

Better to be a note to get out the.

Good evening.

I'm in, Gerry, and I'm Jenny Sloan.

We've got ten minutes in which to answer

a few of the basic questions
that people have been asking about A*DS,

as newspapers continue to print h*m*
headlines.

British
television took a different approach.

In March 87th,
all four channels collaborated to produce

eight week themed programing to teach
a panicked nation about safer sex.

Intercourse with a condom
ought to be a low risk.

Why isn't it Claire Rayner?

Well, it is if you use the right equipment
and use it properly.

First of all, choose quality.

Look for the cut marks

a week.

That was. Yeah.

You could not move on television
without seeing condoms being put on.

Bananas
fitted firmly over the top of the p*nis.

Now, this is a rather wooden hard p*nis.

A nice human one is soft
and easy to handle, and you play.

But you can't go out and fall
as many women.

Is that you would like to?

Have you changed your sexual habits
as well?

Yes, I have actually.

I've, I've cut down

many h*m*.

And some heterosexuals
use this passage for sex.

Now, this is the most dangerous thing
you can do.

For the first time ever,

frank and explicit sex education content

was being broadcast to millions.

Une Lingus, commonly known as rimming.

This is actually probably making
a lot of people giggle, don't you think?

It was being done live
and she started saying, what?

We're going to go through
the safer sex guidelines.

I'd already

reckoned we're going to get to high risk.

And that's going to include fisting,
also known as Brocco practic stimulation,

which means, which means
inserting the fist, into the an*s.

It's not exactly a huge,

it's not not something everybody does.

It's about 2% of people,
both g*y and straight, will do it.

And as far as I was concerned,
I hadn't heard anybody ever mention

fisting on television before.

Can you remember

how you responded at being given
a positive diagnosis?

I'd been expecting to be positive.

About 20.

Norm discovered that he was positive.

So he suggested that I go for a test.

We were fisting, and then Norman
or f*ck me afterwards.

So the chances of not becoming

infected are fairly slim.

At that time,
a lot of people were being told to go away

and they were going to die.

And oh, you'll you'll die quite quickly.

As A*DS spreads.

Hospitals like the Middlesex in London
are coming under increasing pressure.

So now the hospital is to open
the country's first purpose built A*DS

ward opening.

The broader r*pe ward at London's

Middlesex
Hospital marked a radical change.

Specialist teams could now

focus solely on A*DS patients
and their complex conditions.

Now project was something else.

It was like a haven, really.

It did feel like a haven

because all the people who were working
there wanted to be there.

I was a young junior doctor
starting out in my career.

The patients on the walls were all male,
almost

all g*y and young.

It was very different from a normal ward.

They didn't want to see a doctor

in a suit, you know, they wanted
to see someone who they could relate to.

It wasn't about what you look like.

It was about what was inside the staff
and what they wanted to achieve.

It wasn't

like what
I'd been used to nursing at the time.

It was, you know,
your uniform had to be right.

It was very regimented
and I remember going into the reports

and I was sat with my pen and pad,

and then somebody got a lit up a f*g
in the report and went, wow,

I've had a day to day, you know, like,
this is like I was a little bit

shocked.

In April 1987, Princess Diana

officially opened the ward
in full view of the world's media.

The visit was designed to allay people's
fear of A*DS.

A royal opening for the specialist

ward would show that A*DS is no different
from many other diseases.

It's not easy to catch

and you certainly can't get it
through normal social contact.

Diana was incredibly important
because people

were terrified to go near people with HIV.

People would literally burn

people's houses down
if they thought that that person had HIV.

They certainly wouldn't share utensils or,

you know,
they wouldn't touch people's hands.

The patients themselves did not want
to be filmed with the princess

and were hiding from the media, unhappy
at the way they've covered the A*DS

epidemic in the past.

After unveiling the plaque,

the princess spent longer than expected
with the patients.

And finally,
one did agree to a picture of the princess

shaking his hand to prove you can't
catch A*DS through casual contact.

I bet she was told not to do it, but,

holding the hand of somebody

effectively of A*DS on the ward
and being compassionate.

That one action moved people

enormously for Diana to show

that you could just shake hands
with somebody with HIV was huge.

The impact was
because the press covered it.

They couldn't avoid covering
the fact that she shook

hands with somebody who had HIV
that went around the world,

a royal person showing
that she wasn't at risk by doing that.

It made a sea change.

I mean, it didn't convince everybody,
but it did make a massive difference.

And it is why she is remembered
incredibly fondly

by most of the long
term survivors from that time.

We had a patient who very much a royalist,

and he was a lovely, lovely man,
but he was dying.

And so we asked Diana
if she would go into his room

to talk to him, and she sat by him
and she was fantastic.

And then he didn't respond,
but I'm sure he probably had heard her.

And not long after she left, he died.

My physical health was really, really bad.

And then one day I noticed that I was
finding it difficult to use my right arm,

and I began to get a bit scared.

I was admitted to the project board,
which was the HIV unit,

and it had a very nice plaque
saying this is the first A*DS

unit in Britain.

And my boss came
in, my g*y boss came in to see me

on the ward and

he told especially read the plaque.

And he asked me, was HIV positive.

And I said, well, yes.

Thinking it was safe to say yes
because he was g*y.

He laughed.

And then the next day I got notice to say
my employment was terminated

on the grounds of that
I could potentially be a health risk.

And I was lying in my hospital
bed thinking, what the hell hell's

I going to do?

The plaque was actually right
at the end of the ward

above bed seven, which was just before
you entered the sluice.

And it said it was an HIV ward,

so we had to put a picture over it,
because otherwise you'd immediately

be disclosing people's diagnosis
to anybody who came to visit you.

People's prejudice was so strong.

As well as the work being done
at the Broderick

specialist A*DS wards were opening up
in hospitals across London.

They witnessed the full range of symptoms
associated with the disease.

I not sure I'd quite prepared myself

for what I was about to say.

I was stunned how ill people were.

Well, it would be many,
many different presentations of HIV

because of the opportunistic infections
that people got.

So for some people, they they just

blew up.

So they became really,
really swollen everywhere

their faces, their arms and legs

and their bodies so

unrecognizable that that's the extreme.

But I suppose the overwhelming thing,

if you were on the ward
is how thin everybody was,

just how emaciated.

There was an infection
called cryptosporidium,

and they've been leaked as a leaked
as and liters of diarrhea

until that just fade away and die.

There were skeletal.

One of the patients I saw was

basically covered
in this Kaposi's sarcoma.

A rage, angry, blotches all over.

And I mean, in fact,
I still occasionally have nightmares

about what actually.

Not only did you have people
with infections and tumors,

but you had this
this really a premature aging,

part of which is that HIV
got everywhere and eats away your brain.

And we would have people
with very severe dementia.

They didn't even recognize their parents
anymore.

They didn't recognize us.

And of course, you know,

you could see people deteriorate.

You know, these are young people, people

my age that were having these horrible,
horrible things.

You know, you'd sit in the ward round and
listen to what was wrong with patients.

And it was just like
you were in this other world that this

couldn't really be happening.

I think
at that time in nursing and medicine,

we would we would, you know, at that time
were training to get people better.

And I wanted to make them better.

And I couldn't.

My life changed so much as he became ill.

It was difficult at times.

There were terrible strains,
terrible strains on his birth.

He was dying from A*DS that had to shape
the way in which we lived our lives.

We weren't going to carry on
as though there was nothing wrong,

because there was something
terribly wrong.

There were many times
when we felt bitterly angry

that the relationship was going to end
because of George's death.

What can you do

when someone you love changes
before your eyes becomes so?

It just brought us very, very close.

We had to depend and trust each other
deeply.

We had to make a commitment.

We wanted to make sure that

everybody was supported on the ward.

We did everything we could

to enable partners to stay over at night.

So they'd be on a an old spinco mattress.

We put on the floor.

But some people were very, very isolated.

Because they hadn't told anybody.

Perhaps they are living
some sort of a double life

if they're h*m* or their families
don't always know.

So that's a very tricky situation. And

that's what we saw all of the time.

You know, people
who've been rejected by their family.

There was somebody
and they said because of how that died,

they didn't want any of
he didn't deserve anybody's funeral.

But we went anyway.

My sister

never really accepted me being g*y.

It's very much a fundamentalist Christian.

She won't even speak to Colin or me.

For in the same house.

She knows that we're positive
and thinks it's a welcome retribution.

She's actually said that to people,
and she's already said

she won't come to my funeral,
which actually immensely pleased me.

You know, I feel sorry. I've tried,

you know, but there isn't enough time.

The Terrence Higgins

Trust knows that though
dying of A*DS is bad enough.

Living with it can be terrifying.

Some of these guys have become
very isolated.

They had no family to support them.

So we decided to set up the party service,

where volunteers would be matched up
with a person with A*DS.

Are you happy to remain at home, Stuart?

I'd like to die in.

They would visit them at home,

go out, go with them to the hospital
visits or whatever.

The party would be there for them.

There they would.

They would be their friend
to hold their hand.

I mean, to begin with,
it was just like a handful

of volunteers, and it grew and grew.

We're looking for commitment,

a good listener, a sense of humor.

It's important.


like Margaret from Peckham.

This is something that I feel
very strongly, very passionately about.

I was divorced, lived alone.

I was responsible for nobody
except myself.

I needed something else.

I knew a lot of g*y men.

Unlike everybody, I was appalled by
what was going on.

It appealed to me.

The thought of being friends
with one person.

I've actually been diagnosed
with full blown A*DS,

and my part of the disease is PCP,

which is pneumocystis cranio pneumonia.

Jim was c*ck and proud of it.

He certainly was no saint, but,
he was very easy to be with.

I know Jim was frightened.

How could you not be?

Because you could see daily
what was going to happen to you.

It was a death sentence.

I've had Cryptococcus meningitis.

I also have internal chaos,

which at the moment
seems to be centralized just on the colon.

I don't have any external relations.

People did get very close.

They became very good friends
and they would be there as the person was

dying.

Even they'd be holding their hand
because there wasn't

anybody else.

Towards

the end,
I was more or less living with him.

And I was there when he died.

And he made that journey on his own

without me. Yep.

I loved him, simple as that.

For those living

with HIV diagnosis,
being part of the Ice generation

involved negotiating a new identity.

I usually slip into the conversation
at some point

before we have sex that I'm positive,
just to make sure that it's not a problem.

It has to be with someone who I know
they're in

roughly the same situation,

medically speaking, that I am.

If I meet someone that is absolutely
gorgeous, they are so enormously humble.

I have to have their pain set on my bottom
regardless.

That sounds terribly shallow.

And it is. It's
just the basic building for you.

Look. Anything.

I have got to have that.

And we practice safer sex and boys.

I would never f*ck somebody
without a condom.

It was eight months ago

that the first A*DS commercials were shown
on British television.

The effects of that campaign
won't be known for years,

because of the delay between

contracting the virus
and developing the A*DS syndrome.

The number of newly reported cases
is continuing to rise steadily.

It's due to break the 1000 barrier any day

because we had no real treatment.

It was much more about the interaction,
the caring side of things.

I think it molded a

different way
of of actually practicing medicine.

Putting the patients
at the center of therapy

and trying to help that individual,
rather than to treat a disease.

Here were a group of people who were young
who were going to die

within the next few months, and people
wanted to make their surviving time

as good as possible.

What you find, they.

Want to be alive

for tonight.

So I started doing drag in Manchester,
and I was living with a whole load

of sex changes and, street queens, very,
very fashionable.

We had a fabulous look together.

When we got it together, we got wonderful.

I was working with people
with HIV and A*DS, and,

I realized that I could do
hospital visiting.

When I went into Saint Mary's
and introduced myself

to, the ward sister act.

And she said, well, there is one person,
she said, you might like to go in and say.

And these,
young men on the island called Peter

and I sat there talking to this Peter.

Peter then accepted me
as part of a bigger family.

A lot of people who hadn't seen
for many years from the club scene,

often that I was in hospital
and they all started to come back

into my life in the hospital
to be able to kind of transfer

back to the times
which were just like glorious and fun and

it was really great.

And the nurses there say, Michael,

would you go in and see room nine?

They've just been diagnosed
and they're in a terrible state.

So go in and sit down
with whoever and start talking.

On the one hand, it was quite hopeless,

but on the other hand,
there was a lot of joy.

There were the most amazing parties.

They were a celebration
of life, essentially.

We had people coming in and playing music.

Lots of drag acts, of course, and cabaret.

And if patients couldn't get there
by walking, we pushed their beds around.

We knew nothing about boundaries.

I mean, we might go into o'clock
in the afternoon.

Look, stuck
around to 10:00, 11:00 at night.

You know?

Don't know.

On the allocation, we stayed overnight.

So we sat with somebody.

We just melted in and became part
and parcel

of the social fabric of the ward.

We had a little stage.

I always remember one
which was synchronized swimming.

So a load of g*y men dressed up in,

you know, swimming
gear and hats, obviously.

And then they had a sheet,
which was the water,

and then they'd arise out of the water,
and then disappear.

Then there'd be legs coming up.

It was just fantastic.

Sometimes you had

to rein people in a little bit
because we still had to be professional.

But yeah, it was, the parties were good.

So. Yes.

Get you down at Hyde Park in London.

Politicians and celebrities
released balloons into the skies.

More than 1000 of them to commemorate
those who died from A*DS

in Britain.

As g*y people

campaigned for better
HIV and A*DS treatment.

They were more visible than ever before.

No longer prepared to be silenced.

They became out and proud. Fundraisers.

What it meant to be g*y in
Britain was changing.

Are you trying to tell me
that you and Colin.

h*m*.

There's no law against it, is it?

We felt that we were making gains.

We were much more visible.

We started to have g*y people
on television who weren't

entirely caricatures.

You could buy g*y books in bookshops.

There was a spirit that things

were getting bigger and better,
and we were going places.

But we
were in a little bubble, of smugness.

Some right on this.

And we should have seen the clouds
gathering.

I remember an older came and when
I started on the ward said, are you g*y?

And I went, yeah, why?

He went, get in the closet.

They're coming for us.

Instances of discriminate and violence
against h*m* have risen sharply.

The Church of England made
a public declaration only two months ago

that h*m* should be seen
as inferior to heterosexuality.

We just got over feeling that you could

walk down the street, potentially holding
the hand of your same sex partner.

And now we're back in that place where
people responding back then they're using

the fact that you're g*y
and that being associated with A*DS

is the ammunition to attack
you verbally, physically.

The conservative family campaign,

supported by a number of conservative MPs,
is calling for the repeal of the law

which permits h*m* acts
between consenting adults and private.

What we should be saying is you're putting
your nation at risk by your behavior.

We're not going to have
this in the future.

And that's why we're now legislating
to make it once again

a crime to commit these sort of offenses.

Do you go after the majority of parents
in Manchester?

Go on.

Ask yourself on the street what he thinks,
when he will tell you quite clearly

that it is not a natural lifestyle.

They were obsessed with the idea
that we were turning

children g*y, and people believed it.

All of these were harbingers
of what was coming.

Riding on a renewed wave of h*m*,

the government proposed a new law,
section 28.

The central provisions are
that h*m* must not be promoted

in state schools,
and it outlaws teaching the acceptability

of h*m*
as a pretended family relationship.

Section 28 was the return

of h*m* being seen as unnatural

and certainly something
which should not be taught in school.

It's going to criminalize a lot of people.

Tory government ought to answer for.

I think there's more.

Guitarist in labor, SDP,

and yet they're the ones
who bring in the anti-g*y legislation.

Children who need to be taught to respect
traditional moral values

are being taught that they have
an inalienable right to be g*y.

It's horrible.

How would you feel when your government
legislates against you?

Can you imagine sitting there

seeing a young man die, or see numerous
young men die of these brutal deaths

and they bring in an anti-g*y law
in the middle of it,

and they're all sat there clapping.

It really was an opportunity
for some people who hated us

to get the boot, and it was the hook
they needed, and they went for it.

They went for it, and we fought back.

Protesters from all over
the country were joined by others

from as far afield as Scandinavia
and the States.

It was the biggest demonstration
Manchester has seen.

All these people turned up

on that 1st March who'd never been
on the g*y march in their lives.

The protesters said clause


but also on human
rights. It was incredible.

We must be out and about in pubs and clubs

and in the classroom
promoting h*m*

like so many l*sbian g*y men.

I was really angry.

That point
I would have changed myself to railings.

I'd had enough.

I think at the time,
whether it was very fight or flight,

and I would have thought
I would have been a flight, but I wasn't.

I was a fight.

For section 28th March in London.

And the nurses said, well, I'm
not sure if we can go out.

You mustn't be allowed to stand.

Boyfriends come into this world
in which they dressed up

in everything, and off we went.

And they were pushing me down the street.

And that day, I think it just stopped

every single person
I'd ever known in my life from everywhere.

It just seemed like everybody was there

because people didn't know
that I was so sick.

And those that did know that I wasn't
well when I was so sick by that.

My doctors were saying

he probably isn't
going to get through the winter.

Up to 17,000 people in England and Wales
could die

from A*DS in the next four years,
according to the government.

The government's latest campaign stresses
that the difference between the HIV virus

and the A*DS
disease is simply a matter of time.

Collins

condition I'm smiling have changed again
lately.

Colin, actually, I just I started
noticing, suddenly became increasingly

tired.

Eye problems, which is worrying,
you know, and is still extremely worrying.

I mean, physical things have changed.

And some days I'm just so tired.

I kind of 1 or 2 in the afternoon,
I kind of work any longer.

Part of me, it's awful.

Part of me wants him to go first
so I can be there and look after,

and care for him.

And part of me wants to go first
so I don't have to live

without him.

And that's my fear.

My fear will always be losing him.

As a new decade approached.

Scientists were still no closer
to finding a cure.

People with A*DS had a life expectancy
of less than two years.

We were very open about people dying,

people going,
do you think I'm going to die?

We've got to say, I think that's likely
what what do we need to do?

There was no good pretending, I think.

Most of the people who came to the wards

were never going to leave it.

You know, again, I was 22.

I found it hard to.

I went.

It's just me.

You've got me.

Hopefully I can help you. I've

a less frightened death.

Getting to know people
and knowing that you would.

That they're going to die at
some point is always

really, really difficult. And,

and seeing how much people suffer.

People did suffer

the deaths, which were hard.

They were really hard.

There was two of us on a night duty,
and three young men had died in one night.

You literally was running one room
to the other, like zipping up body bags.

Some of the people in the world I knew up
and down the two rooms with them.

I danced with them.

You know, zipping a pack on your friend

and having to go up and go pack up

and go to the next patient.

It was miserable.

Rainy Saturday,

and I thought, I'll go and see Peter
kind of at midday and spend an hour.

So, I come into the hospital
walking down the corridor,

walked into the room, and so immediately,
you know, like, Peter is just

dead.

It's the first dead body

I've ever seen in my life. Lovers
I have lost,

thinking particularly of Norman and Eric

and Martin.

A friend, David, my friend John,

all of whom have died.

We would often see

couples together
with one nursing their partner,

knowing that, the roles could be reversed.

And also knowing at the back of their mind
that actually,

they have possibly acquired HIV

and having to deal with that.

There was a guy on the ward.

It's really hard to explain
how thin he was even to move.

His, was t*rture.

And his teeth were protruding
and his partner,

you know, he was a big barrel guy.

He would not leave his partner's side.

He would not leave his side.

And he would just get this little sponge
and slowly clean his teeth. And

I'd never,

ever seen anybody love somebody like that.

It was just staggering.

I didn't know g*y
men could love each other.

Nobody had told me that.

Did George die in hospital? No.

He was at home. George died at home.

And what had always been what he wanted

was finally developed
fairly rapidly in the summer.

Of those 89.

I spoke his last
coherent words on his last night,

just holding each other.

Wasn't able to say very much.

He wasn't able to move by then,
and he just took my hand.

But all the movement he was capable of
just thanked me

for life together. And,

next afternoon, I was sitting in bed

just talking to him,
although he couldn't respond.

And he died.

And since then,
it just felt like I've been dead for me.

You're watching the

BBC's breakfast news at 630.

The headlines this morning, Monday
the 25th of November.

The pop star Freddie
Mercury died last night in London.

He died 24 hours after confirming
he was suffering from A*DS.

I think for a lot of people, the death of
Freddie Mercury was very significant.

He was a person
everyone loved and never an archetype.

It made people think again about

whether they thought
only bad people got A*DS.

Because nobody thought
Freddie Mercury was a bad person.

So a few months after his death and A*DS
tribute concert was held

in Mercury's memory, an estimated 1

billion people watched it live

each day around the world.



Tonight, we're here to send them a message
that we care.

I think probably, you know,
that was the start of things

opening up again,
people just being a little bit gentler

in the way they thought about things.

I was so young or began for me that,

I don't think I can realistically

say what my life would have been like
any other way.

A*DS is actually my entire adult life.

There's a very,

very high probability
within this coming 12 months.

Given where I am now,
I will develop a full A*DS infection.

So it's a lot of thinking.

I've got to.

Do you think about your own death at all?

I do, from time to time.

Coming to terms with dying.

Being fond of dying is not the same thing.

I don't think

the sort of death that everyone is fond
of, that they won't be in control.

They will be in pain.

That is basically what I
will perceive as a bad death.

I cried over it.

To the telephone.

Over the coming of.

You know, being able to help somebody

feel relaxed and comfortable
when they were dying

was just a total privilege.

It was so visceral in a way

that I've never experienced anywhere else
or anywhere else

since it was the first time really,

that patients got a voice.

And as a young nurse,
that completely changed my view forever.

That was what motivated a lot of people,
knowing that we could do something

to change the way nursing was.

I changed the site to do

what you the one that I.

It was emotional. It was draining.

But I was, you know, often

floored by how brave people were.

It took me a long time, but
now I have some really lovely memories.

I miss a lot of them. But,

you know,

God got out off my arm for ten minutes

with them again.

Yesterday.

I'm one of life's fortunate people,

but I still ended up now with a man
I love very much.

And Adele,

there is a great sadness

and this awful thing
of fear of losing someone.

You know that we do have each other.

We have our love and our strength
and our cats.

We still go to clubs.

We still we don't go with any man anymore,
really occasionally.

But I think if you feel like
in the sun's out strong and you know,

Miami
care now is to enjoy the rest of my life

and hopefully all that, the crime.

Do you think there's any major bits
of your life that we've missed out?

Yeah.

The ending, but that's for another day.

As the epidemic spreads, so does
the outcry over how it can be stopped.

I stopped being John Campbell
for a very long time and became A*DS.

I just became this walking aid.

The controversial A*DS
drug AZT has been shown

to significantly delay the onset of A*DS
when it is combined with other drugs.

It was extraordinary.

It made me believe in miracles.

Discover more about the reality
of living with HIV and A*DS

through untold personal stories
captured by research and video.

Go to BBC doc How Do You look forward?

Slash unheard tapes
and follow the links to the Open

University.

The wonderful.

I see the writing sheet

of all this nonsense.

That brings me to the sweet,

sweet spot.

Thank you for this wonderful call.

My life is and the.