Hope' in 2000.
Simon explains: "I'd been involved in gay
liberation in the 1970s and also did volunteer training at Gay Switchboard.
I attended the first THT conference in Red Lion Square and became one
of a group of people producing HIV prevention and health promotion leaflets.
"This is when they called the disease HLTV3, long before HIV antibody
testing. It was a very scary situation, but there was a real sense of
community and mobilisation. No one was on wages, there were no grants
available. I chaired the Health Education Group and we produced leaflets
and the first THT videos about safer sex. It was all collective work by
volunteers. They were terrible times of homophobia and a rampant Thatcher
government and right wing press. It was virulently and vehemently anti-gay.
Everything THT produced was closely scrutinised in parliament and the
press and the Tory Family Group was gunning for us. I think they wanted
to see the epidemic spread and enjoyed seeing gay men dying.
"The Tory government had to be pushed, shoved and cajoled by both
activism and insiders into taking any action on Aids whatsoever. They
sat back for five years and did nothing.
"But on the twentieth anniversary it's important to stress that the
Trust provided a calm, reasonable voice which is widely respected across
the political spectrum. There was no blueprint whatsoever for the kind
of crisis we faced. I think the Trust made a difference and did lower
the prevalence of the disease and for this we can be proud. To have a
calm public voice when nothing was so unfashionable and unpopular as helping
people living and dying with Aids, was a major achievement.
page 3 of 7
contents
of issue 80/81
back
issues
the
gazette
recipes
small
ads
contacting
us
weblinks
"I think the future for THT will continue to be difficult. Just to have survived for
