A Newport man who helped establish the HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust after losing dozens of friends

Martin Butler remembers the day when his ex-partner died vividly.

For 66 years old Newport HIV / AIDS activists are talking about it, but it’s still stuck in their throat.

Almost 40 years later, his voice is still full of sadness.

“It’s always hard to talk,” he told me about his late partner, who was 22 when he died in November 1982.

He remembers the day painfully well. In fact, when he thinks about it seriously, he can remember every minute.

“I remember leaving London’s Lighthouse Hospital and walking on Oxford Street. I was confused because I couldn’t get the tube.

“And I remember being grateful that it was raining because no one could see me crying.

“Because I’m in a room with a beautiful young man lying in bed … my mother came down from Liverpool and discovered that her son was gay, infected with HIV and dying.

“You can try it and dramatize it, but to live it … how long does a 22-year-old person have when all his organs fail, but still have some parts that are beating? You can see how it will take. It can last for days. You will never fully recover from them.

“This is something about that it’s a sin … it can never take you there completely.”

Martin mentions Is a sinA Channel 4 show that has won great acclaim in recent weeks for portraying the struggle of people infected with HIV / AIDS in London in the 1980s.

Written and produced by Welsh screenwriter Russell T. Davis (who Martin met many times), the show is an important step in addressing the lack of public knowledge surrounding HIV / AIDS over the last 40 years. It has been seen by many people.

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This issue is firmly mainstream today, but it wasn’t always the case. It’s far from that.

For Martin, the show is essential to bring the daily struggle of HIV patients at the time to millions of screens across the UK.

It’s also a cool memory of London that he saw first hand in the 1980s.

Originally from Pis Nguyen Three, Martin had problems as a child. He was raised primarily by his grandparents and often struggled at school.

Born of a congenital nerve injury, Martin was deaf, which often meant he was shunned in a class environment.

“The teacher was reading a book and walking around. If you’re doing lip reading, you basically have to spend an hour taking notes,” he said.

“They were too busy. They had 40 kids in the class and they hated violently, so the quiet kids were sent behind the class.

“But you don’t know this until later. I remember my career teacher telling me that there are these great things called supermarkets open and there is always a stack of jobs. I will. “

Then, at the age of 16, Martin flew to London with a “suitcase and £ 30”.

Although he was still a teenager, he described himself as a “capricious kid.” He used to go on a train spotting trip all over London.

Martin, who worked as a technician in the West End, remembers entering the gay equality campaign office on Windmill Street, just around the corner.

“It made a noise, I was there every day,” he said.

“It was probably the only place where you could find gay-friendly landlords like gay flatshares, bed sits, etc. It’s really the only place.”

There weren’t many social outlets at the time, but the gay community quickly thrived with the arrival of Heaven nightclubs and others at Charing Cross in 1979.

“In the heterosexual scene, it’s hard for most people to understand what it’s like to get drunk and go home on Friday and Saturday nights,” Martin explained.

“But for us, a place like heaven was a social center. It was a place where there was something like a funeral. Everyone had a place to sit in a club.

“I was able to roam the club and tell you who the area is.

“There was a feeling that we were in the spotlight. We had our first gay pride. We had our first Channel 4 program on the scene.”

Martin met Terry Higgins when he lived in London and said he became like his informal mentor.

“There is a scene where Colin meets an older man and he takes him a little under the wings.

“Terry took me that way under his wings. I was very young and a little green, and Terry made me feel like he was part of the same family he belonged to. I did.

“It’s much deeper than friends-you’re all a family, because we all choose not to have a family, to be with a family, or not.

“There was something that helped me escape from the nest and find a society where I could be myself.”

Martin said working in the theater industry made it easier for him to be gay, but not for everyone.

“If you were in the factory, you could only be on Friday and Saturday, because there were often landlords who couldn’t go out. [of the closet] “He said.

“You had to keep things quiet.”

A tragedy broke out in the summer of 1982 when Terry from Pembrokeshire collapsed while working as a DJ at a heavenly nightclub. He was taken to St. Thomas Hospital in London and died on Sunday, July 4, 1982. He was 37 years old.

Initially thought to be pneumonia, Terry became one of the first people in the UK to die of an AIDS-related illness.

“To some extent I’m glad he didn’t know what was coming. He was so ill that he never got out of bed,” Martin said.

“After knowing what was coming, there were so many boys that was horrifying.”

His death, just months before he lost his partner, struck Martin and Terry’s partner Rupert Whitaker violently, urging him to establish the Terry Higgins Trust in 1982.

“We knew that this needed more than just mourning your friends,” he said.

Despite the increasing dissemination of information, Martin said HIV wasn’t really identified until much later.

He said he had written down all the names of those who attended the funeral as a result of HIV / AIDS. He stopped writing it after he was 50 years old.

“I noticed that there were 50 names, and I stopped because I was about to collect train numbers, but I regret it because I could see someone’s face and couldn’t remember the name.”

This caused many to suffer in silence and often die, even without anyone seeking information or help.

For years, attempts to inform the homosexual community and provide a means for HIV / AIDS patients to share their concerns have received considerable backlash.

“Now I’m looking at the documentary timeline, advertising on TV in 1986, and Diana shook hands in 1987. Compare it to when Terry Higgins died in 1982. That’s a big time lag. It was a really terrible time.

“Banks will not receive our money. There were so many suspicions. At that time, everything related to gays was considered poor and bad. No such charity had ever been. ..

“I wasn’t told in uncertain words that there was no way for us to be charity. Where did the money go? That’s it.”

Martin said HIV / AIDS-infected homosexuals, drug addicts, and prostitutes “swirled in a pool of human sewage they made,” said James Anderton, now retired Consul General of Greater Manchester Police. Mentions official statements such as infamous comments from.

This was typical of what was very difficult for patients at the time.

“The background at the time was that when I opened one of the top red newspapers, there was a suggestion that we should all be on the island, and the priests said they would kill their sons.”

It’s a Sin has another scene that resonates strongly with him. That of one of the characters handing out a leaflet with information about HIV / AIDS thrown out of the club.

“It was like me. I was literally thrown out of a pub in North London. At the show they carry out flyers-in fact I let them throw them away after me!”

So far, despite the first great success and favorable welcome to It’s a Sin, it is dishonest to suggest that this has somehow corrected long-standing negligence and complete contempt for HIV and AIDS patients. is.

According to government statistics, 38 million people worldwide suffer from HIV / AIDS.

An estimated 1.7 million people worldwide will be infected with HIV in 2019, and new HIV infections since 2010 have decreased by 23%.

However, despite the best efforts of the Terrence Higgins Trust and other charities, there are long-term sequelae that Martin believes will continue to die.

“It’s a subtle way to influence you. I haven’t had the right relationship since 1990. I found it difficult to keep my job down or even stay in London,” he says. I did.

“You’re in the bar, look at someone, think it’s someone you know, and remember they were buried a year ago. It always happens. It’s Newport. But it happens from time to time.

“I’ve been back in Newport for 15 years and it doesn’t happen that much because I know little about the soul here. So it’s great. I’ve become a hermit in many ways.

“Everyone who thought you were old is dead. In our lives, we are gathering people to be long-term friends. I am part of the surrounding circle. I chat with a person, but all my friends are dead. “

Find out more about Terence Higgins Trust here.

Martin said he was “incredibly proud” of what the Terence Higgins Trust, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, has done to help and support people with an interest in HIV / AIDS.

The world has been a pandemic year that has killed more than 100,000 people so far, but he also feels that lessons from the suffering of people in the past need to be applied in the future.

“When we first started the trust, we saw many young people die suddenly without a family.

“No matter how well trained all doctors and consultants are, there is nothing comparable after the war.

“Now no one is too busy to see it, but when we start to return to normal, there will be long-term harm to mental health, especially among young people.

“AIDS taught us about it. We have experience and need to use it.”