Martin Weaver: Terrence Higgins Trust, AIDS Conference - Sandwell School of Nursing, Birmingham 1985

On the 15th April 1989 at the Hillsborough Football Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire 97 people died (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-19545126).

However, almost exactly four years earlier on the 11th of May 1985 the Valley Parade stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire the wooden roof of the main stand caught fire killing 56 spectators and injuring at least 265. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_City_stadium_fire).

At this same time, in 1985, I had responded to an invitation to speak at a conference on AIDS organised by the Sandwell School of Nursing. The conference itself took place less than a month after the Valley Parade fire. Even in a time without the Internet or rolling 24 hour news I think we all felt doubly shell shocked.

With great foresight the School of Nursing recorded the Conference on video and I asked for a copy of my presentation. A warning here that this is second generation video copy so the quality is far from what we would expect today. I remember watching it a couple of months after the event and was relatively pleased with it. However, it’s taken me almost a year to decide to add it to this Archive because, with the best will in the world, it’s 45 excruciating minutes of bad presentation. If you were creating a teaching course on how NOT to give a presentation then this would be the model of almost all the mistakes you can make!

If I was in the position of defending my 24 year old self, which I suppose I am, then I would have no option but to throw myself onto the mercy of the Court. With no training, no real support and no guidance I stood in front of 100 or so nurses and medical staff to describe the work that we were attempting to achieve at the Terrence Higgins Trust. I had taken the first call on our telephone helpline just 16 months or so before.

The information I provide is valuable as it gives an insight as to where we all were at the Terrence Higgins Trust at that time. I had started as a full time worker taking over from the first employee Colin Clewes, (https://www.colinclews.co.uk/. https://www.gayinthe80s.com/category/hivaids/).

My contract ran month to month on what might now be called a Zero Hours basis – employed when needed. That’s how precarious our funding was back then.

My apologies to those of you who had to sit through this presentation and my thanks to you all for your warm reception back then.

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