Lost friends
1992
Malcolm talks about the devastating affect HIV/AIDS had on the gay
community and him personally. He is HIV positive himself and he lost
his partner, whom he had been with for 25 years.
“My partner died a year before the anti-retrovirals became available, a
year later and he probably would have still been alive. I had another
very close friend who died six months later. It was a terrible period.
I was expecting to die within a couple of years but combination therapy
kept me alive, but without those people in my life, (I wouldn’t have
survived).
“One lost a lot of other friends as well, it was before anti-retrovirals and they were giving them large doses of AZT which was killing them, it was a very difficult period. I’m not alone in having lost a lot of friends and acquaintances.”
Contributed by: Malcolm Gibb, 58