Lawrence Buckley 24th August 1957 – 10th July 1995 “I came across a cache of old photos… …cause we were never being boring We had too much time to find for ourselves… And we were never holding back or worried that Time would come to an end” Being Boring, Pet Shop Boys I came across […]
Category: HIV/AIDS
I couldn’t miss the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt at Tate Modern
I went to see the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt at the weekend. It was on display for four days only in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. I didn’t really have time to make the trip to London from Edinburgh where I live now. But I had to be there. For you. I knew that if […]
Ending new HIV transmission in the UK by 2030 is within our grasp — we must not fail
The global consquences of the Trump adminsration’s disengagement with HIV prevention could be lethal. In the UK we have the opportunity to write a different story. But there is no time to lose. During the terrifying onslaught of announcements from the Trump administration over the last few weeks, it has been his foreign policy interventions, […]
‘You and me together, fighting for our love’ – how Bronski Beat’s The Age of Consent defined an era and why it endures 40 years on
On Monday the BBC’s flagship arts programme, Front Row, marked the 40th anniversary of the release of The Age of Consent, Bronski Beat’s debut album, on 15th October 1984. Presenter Samira Ahmed talked to Laurie Belgrave, founder and director of the south London queer bar and performance collective, The Chateau, and novelist, Matt Cain, formerly editor of Attitude. How far […]
A journey through grief
In 1937, even though banned by the Nazis from producing her work, the artist Käthe Kollwitz secretly made one of her last major pieces. Just 40cm high, it is a sculpture of the draped figure of a mother, sharing a silhouette while cradling her grown son. Twenty-three years after her son Peter’s death, at the […]
On the death of a remarkable woman – in memory of Marie Buckley
Scarcely anyone reading this will have heard of Marie Buckley who has died aged 86. Yet she was, by any measure, a remarkable woman. And although I had not seen her for many years, she was also one of the most significant people in my life. Marie was my late partner, Lawrence’s mum. If you […]
How Scotland can beat stigma and end HIV transmission by 2030 — and why we must
‘What one can see is the present, the dimension of landscape which is in front of us now. But now is shaped by the past, backed by it, as it were, the way the glass of a mirror is backed by silver; it’s what lies behind the present that gives it its color and sheen. […]
‘It’s A Sin’ was so much more than a TV show — a year on, I carry it in my heart
In the dead of night over Christmas 1988, I became aware that hardly any of my fingernails had a lunula. I was 27. Until that very moment, their absence had completely passed me by. A lunula is the half-moon shape at the base of your nail, just above the cuticle. The realisation came as I […]
It’s World AIDS Day again and the fight goes on — ‘We must love one another or die.’
“At the moment I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Three, 1925–1930 It’s World AIDS Day again. Like any such event, […]
‘It’s a Sin’ is dramatic art as redress— it tells our story and gives a voice to those who didn’t make it
‘The houses are all gone under the sea. The dancers are all gone under the hill.’ East Coker, The four quartetT S Eliot In the beginning, I sobbed. At the denouement, I howled. I cry routinely at the telly. But this was different. These tears came not just from shallow, passing sentiment but deep, permanent […]