A Positive Life: HIV from Terrence Higgins to Today

In the final episode of A Positive Life, Sam Smith explores the experiences of young people in the UK who were born with HIV, and looks at what's next in the ongoing fight to end the HIV epidemic.When we think about people who have lived with HIV for a long time, we often think about older people who lived through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 90s. People who remember the days b

Sam Smith explores HIV stigma and misinformation in the Noughties, and how people from marginalised communities are still being left behind today, even as huge strides are made against the virus.In the early 2010s, nearly three decades after the first cases of HIV in the UK, we had life saving treatments for people being newly diagnosed, and medicines like PEP - and later PrEP - th

Sam Smith explores the ways HIV affects women and child-bearing parents, and the ongoing fight to end gender inequality and stigma within the fight for greater AIDS awareness.By the late 1990s, new, effective treatments had dramatically changed the implications of a positive HIV diagnosis. But that remarkable news was still taking time to filter through - both to the general public

Sam Smith explores how the 1990s brought new, effective treatments for HIV that changed people's lives forever - and hears how peer support networks were a lifeline for women living with HIV in the era before these life saving treatments became available. When Angelina Namiba was diagnosed with HIV in the early 1990s, she didn't know any other women with the virus. In this episode,

Sam Smith explores how more than a thousand haemophiliacs in the UK acquired HIV through their treatment - in what's come to be known as the contaminated blood scandal.At the same time that the queer community was fighting the devastation and stigma of HIV in the 1980s, another community was also being profoundly affected by the AIDS crisis. Through the 1970s and 80s, around a quar

Sam Smith explores how AIDS became headline news in the 1980s, and how communities came together to raise public awareness - and fight a growing tide of fear and stigma.Terry Higgins' death in 1982 was one of the first in the UK from an AIDS-related illness. In the years that followed, a steady drip of information - as well as misinformation - slowly spread about HIV.Much of the ea

Sam Smith explores Terry Higgins' life in 1970s and 80s London. His closest friends remember his unforgettable character, and a community on the edge of the AIDS crisis.Like many queer people of his generation, Terry Higgins moved from his small hometown to a big city. In London, Terry found a thriving gay nightlife scene, a supportive community of friends, and a place he could be

Terrence Higgins was one of the first people in the UK to die of an AIDS-related illness. But Terry also lived. Sam Smith explores his early life as a young gay man in Wales.In "A Positive Life", singer Sam Smith presents stories of HIV in the UK over the last forty years. They hear from people who remember the earliest years of the AIDS crisis; the grassroots activists and margina

Sam Smith presents stories of HIV in the UK over the last 40 years; beginning with the life of Terrence Higgins, one of the first British people to die of an AIDS-related illness.