like the title said, the series has had quite an emotive affect on me and I have spent the last week doing a lot of research and reading and trying to unpick what I had watched.
I grew up in Edinburgh (sometimes referred to as the AIDS capital of Europe) and was born in 1980 so I was just a kid when the 1st cases we’re reported. My parents were open minded and inclusive for their generation but also very protective and definitely would have turned the TV off during news reports or interviews to shield me. HIV was also rife among drug users in Ed and due to my dad being in the police I spent years terrified of these “monsters” with the dangerous and alternative lifestyles that were so alien to mine.
Of course as I grew up and educated myself and spent years feeling sad for all the life’s lost and the prejudices they had encountered especially at a time in their lives where they wanted to be touched, loved and comforted but I’m ashamed to say it’s only been since watching Its a Sin and since anything else I could get my hands on that I’ve looked at the people, lives and stories that came before the illness.
So much colour, pride, love, voice, creativity in these beautiful beings, many who who had fought to be seen and had just started to live and love how they wanted and I can’t stop crying for rage they must have felt at a disease that fuelled the discrimination and tried so hard to push them all back into the shadows.
If anyone else has been moved by this, I absolutely recommend “Don’t wipe Tears without Gloves” (Prime) Horizen “Trouble in the village” BBC1 player and also the Instagram page The AIDS Memorial which tells the story’s of many beautiful souls.