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Me and the hubby are slowly working our way through #ItsASin
Have to say some of the best TV I have seen in a long time. Intense, powerful, beautifully written and cast.
Thank you for this story #RussellTDavies
Have to say some of the best TV I have seen in a long time. Intense, powerful, beautifully written and cast.
Thank you for this story #RussellTDavies
Its been tough and I'm only on episode 3. I'm alternating between smiling, laughing and sobbing.
I was still at school when this was going on and I was as ignorant as most but the scenes of locked wards and the treatment received are just shocking beyond belief.
I was still at school when this was going on and I was as ignorant as most but the scenes of locked wards and the treatment received are just shocking beyond belief.
I was so heavily closeted I didn't even know myself, if I did it certainly wasn't acknowledged. I was joining the RAF, being gay just wasn't an option so it really wasn't something I knew much about beyond the government advertising
Being honest, my ignorance and fear of it probably helped me stay closeted once I started having an idea that 'I wasn't like all the rest'. My fear of AIDS meant I really wasn't going to act on it.
I remember one of the very few occasions where I did something was on a detachment to Hamburg in a Kino on the Reeperbahn. Not much, just a little mutual fumbling, but I remember getting back to my hotel room and just scrubbing & scrubbing in the shower until my skin was raw
When eventually I couldn't deny things any longer and I came out & separated from my wife that fear still crippled me. I met the guy who was to become my partner and husband but initially I was still so afraid of being thrown out of the RAF I kept him in the dark as to what I did
I remember a time when I was on a training course at Hereford. I'd arranged to meet him and my cover was that I was working in the area with my dad who was a builder. I'd gone back to his place and afterwards he drove me back to the railway station.
As he pulled up to drop me off he said "I've got something I have to tell you"
Even though we had been 'safe' and all logic said there was no risk it was like all my fears had come to fruition.
The world just faded to black, sounds all went, I was finished.
Even though we had been 'safe' and all logic said there was no risk it was like all my fears had come to fruition.
The world just faded to black, sounds all went, I was finished.
At least that was what my head was telling me.
I think he must have seen the colour drain from my face as he quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out his warrant card, at the time he was a special constable.
I think he must have seen the colour drain from my face as he quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out his warrant card, at the time he was a special constable.
Well I don't think my reaction was quite what he was expecting as the relief was so intense I just collapsed in hysterical laughter.
Things have moved on along way I have been positive almost 20 years now. I am fit, I am well, I have every chance of living to a ripe old age and dying of something totally mundane and boring.
Programmes like this remind us it wasn't always that way and a lot of bright, talented, happy, fun gay men died while the world learned what HIV & AIDS was and how to treat it.
Despite the fact that treatments have progressed so far that HIV is now just another manageable chronic condition the stigma is still there.
I will finish watching #ItsASin & I have no doubt there will be many more tears. For the story & also for those locked in wards, treated as dirty & diseased. For those whose families shunned them. For those whose families were ostracised for daring to stand by those they loved
I am a proud gay man, living with HIV as I have done for 20 years. I am here when so many aren't. We must remember them and with writing like this we will.
I love my Twitter Family. Thanks for being there!
I love my Twitter Family. Thanks for being there!
