Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Krishen Samuel, born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1986, studied Speech-Language Pathology in Cape Town before pursuing a Master’s degree in Global Health, Public Health and Policy in London. Despite being born after the AIDS pandemic began, he grew up in a country with some of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. Since being diagnosed with HIV in 2009, he has been driven to...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Richard Leaf, an English writer, pursued his education in San Francisco and then embarked on a career in theatre. His journey led him to the Royal Shakespeare Company and appearances in notable films such as Braveheart, Hannibal Rising, The Fifth Element, and Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix. In the early 80s, he bore witness to the challenges of the AIDS pandemic in San Francisco, a...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Dr. Graeme Moyle graduated from medical school in Adelaide, Australia in 1986. His interest in infectious diseases led him to the UK in 1988 to specialise in HIV medicine and research. Much of his career has been associated with the Kobler Clinic in London, part of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. In 1996, new classes of medications were found to suppress the virus, leading to dramatic chang...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. David Eason's selfless commitment to volunteering at London Lighthouse, providing care for individuals affected by AIDS, exemplifies his unwavering dedication to making a difference. Collaborating with friends, he spearheaded initiatives such as the "Warriors" club-night, aimed at empowering those living with the illness to lead more fulfilling lives. It was while in the United S...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Andrew Keates grew up in Dorset and realized he was gay at 13. He loves the theater and is now an award-winning director. Some of his productions have been performed in the West End, including 'As Is', 'Dessa Rose', and 'Dark Sublime'. In 2018, he received the 'Young Achiever of the Year Award' for his success in theater and his work raising awareness about HIV and under-represented communities. An...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Dr. Rupert Whitaker is a remarkable individual who has shown extraordinary resilience as one of the longest survivors of HIV. He has been a strong advocate for people with HIV and other long-term illnesses for over 40 years. Disability, mental illness, and age-related issues persist for many living with HIV, despite medication advances. Dr. Whitaker believes that the LGBTQ+ community should t...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Acclaimed actor and national treasure Rupert Everett describes the excitement of his youth when he first encountered the gay scene in London. Rupert Everett's full story can be found in the NHST archive, but in this story he reveals his deepest fears as he became aware of a stalking "vampire" haunting the gay bars and clubs in the US and UK, and tells how AIDS was a 'time-bomb waiting to expl...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Blackliners grew out of a realisation that there were no organisations dealing with HIV that catered specifically for the black community, with the result that many HIV+ black people in the UK felt side-lined. Arnold describes the role the charity played in raising awareness and supporting the black community in various ways. This podcast series features stories taken from our first book, a colle...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. As Minister of Health in the mid-1980s, Lord Fowler found himself at odds with Margaret Thatcher and other members of the Cabinet over how much attention should be paid to the AIDS pandemic. Some neat political manoeuvring enabled him to run a memorable public health campaign which made the nation aware that HIV and AIDS could affect anyone. This podcast series features stories taken from our first...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Barbara von Barsewisch trained as a nurse in London in the early 1990s and worked on Broderip Ward, the HIV ward at the Middlesex Hospital, for ten years. She went on to work at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in the Kobler Day Care Unit, where she developed an expertise in caring for patients with AIDS-related cancers, especially lymphomas. Caring for patients with AIDS in the 1990s was a nur...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Actor Jonathan Blake describes the excitement of his youth when he first encountererd the gay scene in London and San Francisco. His story is both delicious and dangerous and life was joyful. He tells how he had to rally against ‘a terrifying disease’ and the world stopped. Jonathan reveals how the impact changed his behaviours, but his humour and exuberant love of life continues. This podcast seri...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. In the early years of the AIDS pandemic, the focus was on the physical needs of people with the illness. But by the 1990s it was becoming clear that people with AIDS could also become acutely psychiatrically unwell, often as a result of the illness attacking the brain, and that the NHS didn’t have the facilities to cope with this aspect of the condition. Flick Thorley recalls the pioneering work sh...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. As a young woman, Winnie only gradually became aware of the word Slim, as AIDS was called in Africa, which was devastating communities in Uganda in the 1980s. When she was diagnosed HIV positive, she believed she was under a death sentence until she came to the UK and found both support and effective treatment. Her mission ever since has been to convince others that HIV need not be a barrier to liv...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. Jane Bruton began her nursing career in Leicester and first encountered HIV patients when she became Ward Sister in the infectious diseases unit there. After a short spell as a health advisor in the Sexual Health Clinic at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, in 1989 she became Sister on Broderip Ward, the dedicated HIV ward at the Middlesex Hospital. Jane returned to the Chelsea and Westmin...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. “It was profoundly moving that a bunch of people, pilloried by society and told that AIDS was their own fault, were utterly non-judgmental themselves.” When Kelly Hunter’s close friends in the theatre began dying of AIDS related illness, she put her career on hold for two years to volunteer with the Terrence Higgins Trust. She used her theatrical contacts to raise money for AIDS charities and was t...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. This podcast represents just one example of many stories from the full form Audiobook "Love, Loss & Life" published by the National HIV Story Trust. Alan Burgess was diagnosed as a child in 1967 with a moderate form of haemophilia. A painter and decorator by trade, he was married with children in the 1980s when he was given NHS contaminated blood products and became infected with HIV, ev...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. This podcast represents just one example of many stories from the full form Audiobook "Love, Loss & Life" published by the National HIV Story Trust. Although her partner died of AIDS-related illness in 1998, Adrienne was not diagnosed herself until four years later, by which time she had a viral load of over 2 million. She found being a woman with HIV a lonely experience at first, and hi...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. This podcast represents just two examples of many stories from the full form Audiobook "Love, Loss & Life" published by the National HIV Story Trust. After studying International Relations at Keele University, Sir Nick Partridge was living in Amsterdam when news of an illness affecting gay men in America started to percolate through to Europe. He returned to England, volunteered for Gay ...

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. This podcast series features stories taken from our first book, a collection of essays, reflections, and testimonies also entitled ‘Love, Loss & Life’ which you can buy here. An audiobook is also available here. Visit the National HIV Story Trust website

Your feedback means a great deal to us. Please text us your thoughts by clicking on this link. This podcast represents just one example of many stories from the full form Audiobook "Love, Loss & Life" published by the National HIV Story Trust. George Hodson can legitimately claim to have been there at ‘Ground Zero’, living in San Francisco when the very first cases of HIV/AIDS began to appear among the gay community in America in the early 1980s. Diagnosed with AIDS himself a decade lat...