features - issue 73/74

I shall not be moved

positive nation

Canary Islands as an actor, a tour guide, a barman. He was frequently homeless. "I slept in parks. I

often had sex with men I did not like to get something warm in my stomach."
He came to the UK as an illegal immigrant in 1987.
He was diagnosed with HIV almost as soon as he arrived in London. Characteristically, he joined the newly-diagnosed support group at the London Lighthouse that day, and ended up running it.
But he was also running from demons. He emerged from his homeless years an alcoholic. He joined AA but, he says: "I

Elfrid Walkingtree

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thought I could solve all my problems with my own intelligence. I thought God was my subordinate."
He approached HIV treatment with the same independence, rejecting AZT, sceptical of antivirals, trying every alternative therapy. He trained as a Reiki practitioner, as an aromatherapist, as a masseur.
It wasn't until he went back to Spain for a home visit in 1997 that Elfrid finally encountered something that forced him to rely on others instead of himself.
"It started as travel sickness. Then I stopped being able to read things." He went rapidly downhill and just about got back to his flat in east London.

"I went to the hospital. They were baffled. Nothing showed up on tests." By

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