• THE current pre-pandemic is an unwelcome reminder of the tangible climate of fear all pervasive during the 1980s HIV/Aids crisis.

At the time, I experienced genuine shock having walked down Drury Lane to visit my dentist, out of working hours, to find his equipment entirely wrapped in cling film, having been diagnosed as HIV+ in 1985. I really did feel like a leper.

The Senior Registrar at Westminster Hospital, whose clinic I attended close to MI5 HQ via a secret basement entrance, instructed me on no account to tell my family, friends, employer, not even my GP! This proved to be shockingly sound advice!

Tragically for many young men, including dear friends, it proved a horrible death sentence and decades later there are still pangs of “survivor guilt”.

But fortunately, the gay plague, as it was known, was actually quite hard to transmit in most social interactions, as we now know.

So it is very disturbing that some surviving gay seniors in care homes still have to face prejudice today with TV remotes being similarly wrapped in protective film.

TONY TUGNUTT,
NW1