Shownotes
A graphic designer who went from a back clinic to an AIDS diagnosis in 1995, was hospitalised with PCP at seven and a half stone, and watched 30,000 balloons released at Pride - each one representing someone who died - thinking: next year one of those is going to be me.
Summary
Tony Bird moved to London in 1990 and worked as a graphic designer in Soho. By autumn 1995, he had a cough his GP dismissed as nothing. He'd lost a huge amount of weight. At a back clinic, a doctor listened to his symptoms and said: I'm not the person to do this, but I think maybe you should have an HIV test. Three days later, Tony couldn't put his boots on. A gay GP neighbour called Julian came over, listened to his chest, and called an ambulance immediately. Princess Diana was on the television in the ambulance - the Panorama interview, three of us in this marriage. By admission, he was seven and a half stone. He was 28.
The doctors said: we think you've got PCP. Are you aware of the implications of that? Tony had seen And the Band Played On. He knew exactly what PCP was. He felt relief - finally someone was taking it seriously. A month in hospital, including intensive care, and then home to Brixton Hill by Christmas. But he had no confidence in the medication. The drugs targeted HIV at only one point in its reproduction cycle, and resistance came quickly. At Pride that year, they released 30,000 balloons, each representing someone who had died. Tony thought: next year one of those is going to be me.
Combination therapy arrived, and with it, a future he hadn't planned for. Today, Tony is happier than at any point in his life. He takes one pill a day, sees his consultant twice a year, and dances with a community that makes newcomers feel welcome. He is a gay man in his late fifties for whom HIV has very little daily effect - and that, after 1995, is its own kind of miracle.
Key Moments
- [00:01] 30,000 balloons - each one representing someone who died of AIDS, released at Pride, and the thought: next year one is going to be me
- [03:11] The cough that wouldn't go - a GP who dismissed it, a back clinic that suggested an HIV test, and the walk from Soho to Oxford Circus that required sitting down on the pavement
- [04:34] Julian from next door - the gay GP neighbour who listened to Tony's chest and called an ambulance immediately
- [04:54] 20 November 1995 - admitted to hospital at seven and a half stone, down from ten, with Princess Diana on the ambulance TV
- [06:29] PCP and relief - told he had an AIDS-defining illness, and the strange comfort of finally knowing why
- [09:07] No confidence in the drugs - one class of medication, rapid resistance, and the certainty that treatment wouldn't keep him alive
- [09:37] "I'm not going to live until I'm 30" - one bleak night in hospital, telling his partner
- [38:47] 2025 - one pill a day, consultant twice a year, and very little daily effect. Happier now than at any point in his life
Dedication
Tony remembers those represented by the 30,000 balloons released at Pride - each one a person who died of AIDS.
About Anthony Bird
Anthony Bird is a graphic designer who was diagnosed with an AIDS-defining illness in November 1995 at the age of 28. He was hospitalised with PCP at seven and a half stone. He lives in London and describes himself as happier now than at any point in his life.
Resources
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Transcripts
Anthony Bird
It's mostly a good day, but at that point in pride, they just started doing a big balloon release, and so they'd have a big balloon release of or say, 30,000 balloons. And each balloon represented someone who died of Aids. And that was a moment for me where it's like a real intimation of death. Because I can remember thinking, next year one of those balloons is going to be me.
::Dan Hall
signer who moved to London in: ::Dan Hall
He experienced the seismic shift that combination therapy brought in the mid-nineties, witnessing his own health transformation. Tony, welcome to HIV. The morning after.
::Anthony Bird
Hi, Don.
::Dan Hall
let's start back in the early: ::Anthony Bird
I had what was a pretty classic conversion, and I said I had two weeks off work because what felt like a really bad day said the flu. And honestly, that's kind of what I thought it was, really. That would have been back in July 95th. And, things just kind of got progressively worse. I started to feel ill in L.A..
::Anthony Bird
I lost a huge amount of weight, but I'd been long to my GP and she just said, oh, you've got a cough. It's nothing. You've got a cough. About a week before I've been in hospital, I'm going to say they were going to. They're checking out my box. I've had a bit of a bad back at that point.
::Anthony Bird
That was completely unrelated to HIV. And he talked about other things. And when I said what all my symptoms were, he said, yeah, I'm not the person to do this, but I think maybe you should have an HIV test. Would you be okay with that? And, you know, going to a back clinic and ending up with HIV. But but yeah.
::Anthony Bird
And I think the following day the cough was so bad. I was working in Soho at the time, just walking from Soho to Oxford, Oxford Circus Tube. I'd started coughing and just had to stop and sit down on the pavement because the coughing was so bad, which.
::Dan Hall
I has to be said, is like a seven minute walk. I mean it easy stroll. Yeah.
::Anthony Bird
And that was my last day at work. And then three days later, I'm lying in bed. I'm. I think we talked about going to air, and I literally didn't have the strength to put my boots on and walk downstairs. And we had, our next door neighbour was a, with a GP who was also gay. And my partner just said, right, I'm getting Julian from next door.
::Anthony Bird
And, and Julian just looked at this and it looked at my chest. Saint sounded it looked at me and and then called it called an ambulance immediately the princess out of the panorama. And she was literally on the tube, as is, is, as I was being looked over by the ambulance staff.
::Dan Hall
th of November,: ::Anthony Bird
And by the time I was admitted to hospital, I'd gone down to seven and a half stone, which, you know, until I've ten. So it's just really kind of breathing.
::Dan Hall
And was there a point where you think you were in denial about what was wrong because you talked about, you thought it just was the flu, but was there a moment where you thought, sit.
::Anthony Bird
I don't think there was that. I mean, I think I was in denial, obviously. But there wasn't really a moment when I felt there was something else.
::Dan Hall
What does that feel like? Being in an ambulance, being looked off, being looked over, having a sense that something very serious is happening?
::Anthony Bird
I think I was just mainly feeling relief that finally someone was taking this seriously. I know some people really hate being in hospital, but I think because from that time, whenever I'm there, I'm in hospital now, I kind of feel looked after and safe. I'm in hospital. I'm in here, basically. I'm free. I'm done. I'm kind of grateful to be in hospital because I've been fighting for a few days to say, look, something is seriously wrong.
::Anthony Bird
Can someone do something about this? And the doctors basically said, we think you've got PCP. Are you aware of the implications of that?
::Anthony Bird
I dread things like, the band played on, so I knew exactly, what? Pneumocystis. I'll probably pronounce it Robert, but knew my sister's canyon pneumonia. I knew exactly what that was. And it was an Aids defining illness. And so they didn't actually mention HIV. They just said, we think you've got PCP. I'm aware of the implications of that.
::Anthony Bird
And I knew exactly what the implications were. If I'm honest, I just kind of felt relief that right now I know why I've been so ill for the last few months.
::Dan Hall
And also, frankly, you must have had relief that you didn't have to say the full name of PCP every single time.
::Dan Hall
So you're in hospital, you're very, very ill, but you're feeling listened to very least. What is your time like in the hospital? What happens there?
::Anthony Bird
So I spent a month in hospital, literally just over four weeks. So I'm in intensive care because I'm obviously seriously ill wired up to everything. And they start pumping sap into me, which is it's it's kind of it's something I think it's something they use before antibiotics, but it's got a way of really wide range. It's pretty strong, and it's got a really wide range of water acts on.
::Anthony Bird
And I start feeling better almost immediately. Or if you remember, after, after two days of it, it's like I finally got an appetite, I got this, I want to eat food. I'm not forcing myself to eat food, I want to eat food. And that just felt incredible. After several weeks of really having no appetite whatsoever.
::Dan Hall
So from the perspective of somebody newly diagnosed, what is the treatment landscape like? Because there had been you had had over a decade now of people dying and, and so of treatments limping and getting better and maybe getting better. How did you feel your prognosis was? Did you feel confident that medication was going to keep you alive indefinitely, or was it a matter of just bailing out a sinking ship?
::Anthony Bird
No, I had no confidence in the medication that was available because because it's only from one one set of drugs which target HIV at one point in its reproduction cycle, it means that you develop resistance and pretty quickly. So I had no sense that medication was going to keep me alive.
::Dan Hall
And how old were you, Tony?
::Anthony Bird
28.
::Dan Hall
So, a young pup?
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. No, I can remember. That was one bleak night quite early on in the hospital when my partner came to visit and I said, I'm not going to live until I'm 30. I know it's probably being a little bit overdramatic, and I felt something, and I felt that dramatic underneath the teeth nearby. And afterwards.
::Dan Hall
So it sounds like in: ::Anthony Bird
Yeah, I was home by Christmas. That was good. Spent it my partner's flat and had a couple of friends rent, but I was home, and, you know, I was much better than I had been a month before.
::Dan Hall
And I was home for you.
::Anthony Bird
Brixton.
::Dan Hall
From where I'm speaking.
::Anthony Bird
Yes. Yeah. No. Brixton. Brixton Hill.
::Dan Hall
So tell me, what is: ::Anthony Bird
Exciting, actually, for Goma. That seemed to be a lot on,
::Dan Hall
We had pop stars.
::Anthony Bird
Quite. Wasn't, pop stars. I at that point in my life, I was absolutely assured of going to the fridge listening to house music until six in the morning. Gay man. I moved to Brixton because of the fridge.
::Dan Hall
So for everyone listening, the fridge, was in the old ABC Brixton cinema, at the bottom of Brixton Hill at the northern end of Brixton Hill, and is now the electric Ballroom and was quite a famous venue, wasn't it, the fridge night out.
::Anthony Bird
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. It had, a gay club in the late 80s, early 90s called Daisy chain, which was great big, which was a weeknight. And then at about 93, they started with a gay night on the Saturday. And it was huge. It was like, absolutely the place to be in London at the time.
::Dan Hall
What would a night out of the fridge be like?
::Anthony Bird
::Dan Hall
I besides you taking your top off of girls.
::Anthony Bird
I'd get there by midnight. Yeah, drugs would be involved.
::Dan Hall
I was about to say midnight. I'll be your bed by then.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. No, I wouldn't drink, but there would be ecstasy. And I'd be there with friends and, you know, your shirts would come off immediately. Then might be. There might be a party or, or there might be half a dozen strippers. But, you know, it's kind of like I've seen what a cock looks like before, you know, they're entertaining, but they're not why you're there.
::Anthony Bird
You're there to dance until 6 a.m. with your tribe. And that's what it felt like. It felt like we were one big tribe because lots of people were taking ecstasy at that point. And you just felt you were one big gang.
::Dan Hall
And so we're in Christmas: ::Anthony Bird
I don't think so. Because, like I said, I had friends who were HIV positive and were HIV activists, and sometimes I'd be going out partying with them. So, no, I don't think it did. Really.
::Dan Hall
Now, a lot of the guests I've had on here in previous episodes to yours have spoken about a sense of shame, secrecy, isolation, wanting to shut themselves off from the world. It's very interesting that your story really does not feel like that at all.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah, I really didn't feel like that because, like I said, I had friends who were HIV already because of the nature of my diagnosis. It was pretty public. All my friends knew I was HIV positive.
::Dan Hall
When you talk about the nature of your diagnosis, what do you mean?
::Anthony Bird
Well, I was in hospital for a month. It and I'd gone down to seven and a half stone. It was pretty obvious what was wrong with me.
::Dan Hall
Yeah, and that would be the natural one. Plus one is two, isn't it? When, when a gay man in his late 20s is hospitalised. Yeah, that's what we all thought.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. And I actually the only people, I kept it so everyone knew. But I didn't tell my family. And, like, you know, I find it hard to believe they didn't know nine. But it was a very different time back then. There was one point about a week into my illness and a week into the hospitalisation where my father came to visit.
::Anthony Bird
He saw me so rough. I was looking and was demanding of the nurses at the time. What is wrong with him? You've got to tell me what is wrong with him. I'm his father and because I'd put my partner down as my next of kin when I entered hospital, the nurses were just incredible, actually. They said, you're not down his next of kin.
::Anthony Bird
We can't tell you.
::Dan Hall
Did he not then put pressure on you to tell him?
::Anthony Bird
Yeah, but I just said, well, it's pneumonia and I. And that was the sense of shame I felt I'd let my parents down. And I didn't tell them until a year later.
::Dan Hall
Now, you talk about being a different time. How was it different from your perspective?
::Anthony Bird
My parents knew I was gay. I was complete, that they were. They were okay with that. They weren't necessarily comfortable with it at that point, but they were okay with it. I knew they loved me, and still loved me. But just it, you know, those conversations were just so much more prevalent then because, you know, you look at the situation, at being groping, people's attitudes to being gay in the UK in the mid 90s were and they was pretty grim reading.
::Dan Hall
So just winding back to the tone in art college, you haven't come out and you haven't had gay sex yet. At some point you do have gay sex. What was it like losing your virginity in the climate of a virus floating around the space?
::Anthony Bird
I wasn't scared, I wasn't having anal sex then. So I wasn't concerned about it. Well, I had first had gay sex. It was with my first boyfriend. Because when I finally, went to art college, to my degree, I was in Scotland, in Dundee. There weren't that many gay men about, So it was just so overjoyed to finally find a man my age who I fancied, who fancied me back.
::Dan Hall
And just to point out to people, younger people listening, the age of consent for gay people was 21. Yeah. Ridiculous.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. And, you know.
::Dan Hall
It was 16 for straight people.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. So not only did it criminalise me when we started going out, he turned 19. But so not only did it criminalise me for being 21, it criminalised him as well. Just completely ridiculous.
::Dan Hall
So moving back to: ::Anthony Bird
Yeah.
::Dan Hall
And, that a lot of previous guests have spoken about this being a much longer time.
::Anthony Bird
Right.
::Dan Hall
Now without wanting to have a of who's the patient zero narrative and blame shaming. It sounds like you are aware of the moment. And do you likely became positive Unpretty sir.
::Anthony Bird
Yes. But I they're not somewhat I got, I don't even know their name so you know, but I've got to say I've got a reasonably good guess as to why that happened. Yeah.
::Dan Hall
I think understandably or maybe not understandably. Often people feel a need to know who it is so they can blame someone. You know, the whole culture of the patient. Zero.
::Anthony Bird
You know, I've got no idea if I knew they were positive or not. Yeah, I know I feel no blame towards them whatsoever. It's, I knew what I was doing when I did it.
::Dan Hall
And did you get ill again? Because you're not far from combination therapy coming down the line. Oh, yes.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. So basically, my system collapsed completely. So when I was admitted to hospital, I'm not sure if they did a viral load when I was in hospital. It it when? Shortly afterwards, my viral load was way up in the 2 million, 3 million mark, my CD4 count was less than ten. Too small to be measured.
::Dan Hall
So just a step in the, you know, viral load means the amount of HIV in your blood, which was a very high amount. That huge CD4 count is the level of white blood cells protecting you, of which there was very few.
::Anthony Bird
Die, none, basically. And that didn't change. So although I, you know, I, I put on weight again was feeling a bit better. Those blood results didn't change for the next year.
::Dan Hall
And we talk about the next year and we go to pride in the summer. The summer of 96.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah.
::Dan Hall
What did you witness there and what did you think?
::Anthony Bird
We went to the park. The party in the park afterwards, which was.
::Dan Hall
Clapham.
::Anthony Bird
Common. Clapham common? Yeah. And yeah, it's mostly a good day. But at that point in pride, they just started doing a big balloon release. And so they'd have a big balloon release of, I'll say, 30,000 balloons, and each balloon represented someone who died. It of Aids.
::Anthony Bird
They'd always be a group of dizzy queens who wouldn't realise what it was in which year. So that was always a bit unpleasant. And so I, I like the people I've gone with. I've gone with the park with a couple of HIV activist friends on my partner, and we just decided we knew when the boom being released was, we just found ourselves a little, sorry.
::Anthony Bird
Quiet around the park and. Oh. So let me, get graphic myself. And that was a moment for me where it's like a real intimation of death. Because I can remember thinking. Next year. Sorry. If I can remember thinking next year, one of those balloons is going to be me.
::Dan Hall
Annual. A 29 year old thinking this.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah, yeah. There are a couple of, opportunistic infections that I got. The main lasting one, which still affects me now, is that I got shingles twice. And really. And I got it on the side of my face, and it was quite bad. And it got. And shingles affects your nerves. And what it did do was it got into my eye and affected my optic nerve.
::Anthony Bird
And the damage it did to my left eye means that I'm still blind in my left eye. Nine.
::Anthony Bird
It's funny because so I mean, I can tell you it feels pretty awful, but I can't really express more than that because I think so much of this time I've just kind of blanked in my memory of it.
::Dan Hall
And then when did you first hear about combination therapy? Because we've all been hoping for a miracle, hadn't we? And we were promised that AZT was a miracle. It turned out not to be. People had carried on dying. They carried on getting ill. So we had been waiting for something.
::Anthony Bird
There was a big. So that was 96. It was a big aid conference that summer, which is when the results were presented. And I think people were just astounded by just how successful the trial had been. So I'd probably have read about that in the gay press shortly afterwards.
::Dan Hall
And had you had you waited and waited and waited, were you kind of waiting for the phone to ring from from your clinician?
::Anthony Bird
No, because, you know, you'd seen the results, but it was still I'm not still not quite sure if I believed them. So I'd have been quietly hopeful. But I think I think people you with people still aware of the disappointments of the past and you know, it's I hope their kills you sometimes. I've been on various HIV meds that year.
::Anthony Bird
So again, I've been on AZT, but it was being given a much smaller doses than it had done when affected people really badly. And I, you know, they tried me on DG, I and I think, I think after two doses I want projectile vomiting was yeah, I could have done that as an Olympic sport. It was under the distance.
::Anthony Bird
It covered that it was pretty dreadful. I had to come off it immediately.
::Dan Hall
So your bloods are still low, your immune system still fucked. And you go on this combination therapy. What happens?
::Anthony Bird
Disappointingly, the first combination didn't work. So there really, you know, I, I was on it for a month or two. It wasn't having any effect on my bloods. And, yeah, that was disappointing. And then they switched the treatment around and they did something which was quite new at the time, quite unusual. And so they put me on four drugs, two of which were protease inhibitors, rather than one of which being a protease inhibitor.
::Anthony Bird
So they tried me on two protease inhibitors at the same time. And I can remember, I said months later, I can remember my clinician lit, my consultant literally skipping down the corridor with the results. She was so pleased.
::Dan Hall
g this would have been spring: ::Anthony Bird
That that would have been. Yeah.
::Dan Hall
And when nine months after you saw those balloons go up and pride.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. And I guess, again, I'm not wanting to get you know, I'm pleased. Obviously I'm pleased, but I'm not wanting to get my hopes up too high.
::Dan Hall
And do you think that's a reluctance that you still feel now.
::Anthony Bird
Oh, was.
::Dan Hall
There a point at which the therapy just worked and worked and you thought actually, you know what, this can now become more background noise?
::Anthony Bird
Yeah, yeah, I think within a couple of years, maybe even a year, just a year of starting, taking it. The results for everyone, pretty much every. But I don't see, the some exceptions, were so good that, actually at that point there was even talk that if they could keep the viral load, they might virus in your bloodstream at levels that were so low they couldn't find them for several years, they would there was even talk.
::Anthony Bird
It might be a cure. I don't see that didn't pan out. That's fine. But so, you know, the results were so good that after a few years. Yeah, I was certain that at least my condition would be managed and new drugs had started to pop up as well. So not just the first of the combination drugs new.
::Anthony Bird
So better drugs were popping up. And so it felt like they'll keep finding new drugs. So even if I become resistant to some, there'll be other options available. And within a couple of years I'm pretty confident I'd say those early HIV drugs, yes, they absolutely worked and they saved my life. But some of the side effects are still pretty grim sometimes.
::Dan Hall
Like, well.
::Anthony Bird
Diarrhoea, you know, it's, you know, I can present myself as having a life that was pretty normal. But, you know, that was a lot of time. There were a lot of times when I was going out with a wad of toilet paper stuff down my neck is in the back, have neck is in my back. Because you never know when diarrhoea might strike.
::Dan Hall
And how does something like that affect you?
::Anthony Bird
You just get over that. It's, you know, I, I was determined to carry on and live my life. I wasn't going to stop doing things. But I tried to turn as best, as normal, as best I could.
::Dan Hall
Still taking the shirts off down at the fridge.
::Anthony Bird
I was actually. Yeah. Absolutely. Damn right. One of the side effects of the drugs was that they affected the way, the fat accumulated in your bloodstream and the way your body distributed fat.
::Dan Hall
So we, combination therapy now.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah, yeah. And so it was impossible for me to put on any subcutaneous fat. And so my doctors just said, you can't put on weight, but you know why? Fat. The only way you can put on weight is by going to the gym. And so I started going to the gym, which had always kind of been a bit opposite.
::Anthony Bird
And, you know, I was absolutely no a muscle memory. But when you've got a 0% body fat and you start going to the gym, I got pretty, pretty decent abs. I might not have had big arms or a big chest, but I had really good abs. I was absolutely going out and showing myself.
::Dan Hall
I was about to say, I imagine you were quite a popular gentleman.
::Anthony Bird
I did okay, I wasn't. Yeah, no, I did okay.
::Dan Hall
In fact, talking about sex, what is sex like in terms of, you know, if if there are conditions that are either demonised in a heterosexual society or even within our own queer society, and we talked about this on the podcast, people still not understanding now, especially younger people on Grindr and Scruff and things like that. What is your set?
::Dan Hall
You know, you're in combination therapy now. What is your sex life like?
::Anthony Bird
the early noughties, I guess: ::Anthony Bird
And other HIV positive men would see that and contact me. And so which basically meant I could have lots of unprotected sex because we were both HIV positive.
::Dan Hall
And why from, enjoyment. From an emotional point of view, why is unprotected sex a thing? Because I were I grew up with, having to wear 15 condoms on my deck and just and always having that checkpoint of association of sex with illness. So why for you is unprotected sex? And why was unprotected sex important?
::Anthony Bird
I guess I it I hadn't really have very much of it at all before I was infected. To some extent, to some extent, the feeling that you're doing something that society friends upon. And so there's a element of being a little bit rebellious. And just to be honest, it just felt nicer.
::Dan Hall
You know, it's closer, doesn't it? Feels more.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. It's, you know, you it's feeling the touch of another person. Basically.
::Dan Hall
Now, in your research notes, you talked about having varied experiences with HIV services over the years. Some were good, some were bad. Tell me about that.
::Anthony Bird
I guess. Well, if I'm if we're not in the night, I'm talking about in the charts trust. So in the mid 90s, the HIV activist friends I was, I was friends with, were pretty pissed off with the trust. And eventually they set up the UK coalition to, for people with HIV and Aids, which.
::Dan Hall
Can you just tell us who Terrence Higgins trust are for people who don't know?
::Anthony Bird
So they're an HIV organisation? Absolutely. The most famous one, probably the first one set up in the UK that was feeling that they weren't really servicing the needs of people with HIV, and that there was a need for an organisation which was run purely by people who had HIV themselves.
::Dan Hall
I remember there being conversations around this time that, the very well-intentioned services of FD were very much focussed on prevention, rather than providing, advocacy for people who were positive. I don't know how fair that is, but, that is a conversation I remember being had around this time.
::Anthony Bird
That's my recollection as well. Yes.
::Dan Hall
The reason I think a lot of this is controversial is, as with a lot of charities, often the government would employ a charitable organisation to provide certain services on their behalf because they were experts in that field. And so therefore, if some of these services are missing, it is problematic.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. Yeah. So the GHC were really good. Great. Were really good with me when I'd had benefits stop for one reason. I had to appeal and they absolutely held my hand through all that process and a way that I could, you know, they helped me in a way I couldn't have done, helped myself. They were brilliant.
::Anthony Bird
But then later on, at the end of the noughts, at the end of the noughties, when, a lot of benefits were taken away from HIV positive people, if I absolutely felt that they were complicit with the government and doing that, and then they refused to help people who've had their benefits taken away, and it was just like, what the fuck are you here for?
::Dan Hall
So why would they be complicit?
::Anthony Bird
Because they'd been involved in the government consultation. And I'm, you know, I don't know what they were arguing. I'm not. I wasn't in the room, but they were involved in the government consultation. And then when the government, which was a Labour government at the time, at the end of, Gordon Brown's prime ministership, I think, when the when the benefits were taken away, the text, he didn't put any information about it on their website.
::Anthony Bird
They didn't talk about it. Six, at least six months went by before that. He did anything at all. And it just kind of felt like they were being absolutely complicit in that.
::Dan Hall
And what would you like them to do.
::Anthony Bird
For them to put information out there and for them to help people appeal, you know, try and win the benefits back on appeal. And I went to them at the time. They took all my detail saying, and then said, no, sorry, we can't help you.
::Dan Hall
And so what were your activist friends doing on the back of this?
::Anthony Bird
The the UK Coalition of People with HIV and Aids usually called it the UK coalition. Was an organisation that was set up by people with HIV. For people with HIV that were running out for various things. But one of the biggest things they did was they set up a magazine called Positive Nation, which was an A4 glossy magazine, that just just dealt with news, interviews with people with HIV.
::Anthony Bird
I it's I can't recall a lifestyle magazine, but it was kind of aping those things.
::Dan Hall
And as it should have done, because we still had at that time, these classic versions didn't really have the gaunt of the Kaposi's sarcoma, of the these really hackneyed old school visions of people who are HIV positive. And I think there did need to be a reboot.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. I mean, just having just presenting, you know, if they talk to HIV people about their lives and I and even as someone who had friends with HIV, just to see that a broader range of people is fantastic. If you are living somewhere where if you, you know, if you hadn't told anyone about your status and you had no other friends with HIV, then it would have been absolutely, absolutely lifeline.
::Dan Hall
e pretty much wine forward to: ::Anthony Bird
Yeah.
::Dan Hall
You've had quite an up and down decade a couple of decades. Yeah. You quickly you Sarah convert and then quite quickly you're hospitalised. You do a bit of AZT, you do some drugs. They're not particularly nice. Even combination therapy, initially wasn't fantastic to you. And then you face something quite shocking in your life. And that's ballroom dancing.
::Dan Hall
What happened there?
::Anthony Bird
I'd been scathing about it when I was younger. I go, actually, if there's one. I don't have regrets in my life, but if there is one regret, I have, it's that I didn't go to a dance class when I was in my 20s because I went to my first dance class when I was, I guess, 44, 45.
::Anthony Bird
I reached my early 40s. I really loved clubbing, you know, I really enjoyed it. I wasn't going out to pick out. I was going out because I wanted to dance. And by the time I reached 40 early 40s, it would come to midnight and I'd be thinking, shall I go out or should I go to bed? And I was going to bed.
::Anthony Bird
But I still I still missed it. And then I heard, I, I'd seen I had a friend who was really into it, and beans his wedding. And I'd seen him dance with his partner. It's wedding. And then their friends were dancing together, and that look, you know, it's like, wow, that looks good. And I walked out strictly.
::Anthony Bird
And you watch the contestants on strictly, and they look like they're having the time of their lives. And so I just expressed it to my friend when when New Year's Eve at a party and said, do you not think about coming ballroom dancing just to see what it's like? And that was it.
::Dan Hall
Was that done this night in that amazing old hall?
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. Well, it's at Bishopsgate Institute now.
::Dan Hall
Oh, okay. Sky is amazing.
::Anthony Bird
Yeah. It's fantastic. So much love for that place. But at that point, it was in a little underground. Underground nightclub in, in Hoboken. And I went and enjoyed it. And everyone is so welcoming to newcomers there. You know, they all know what it's like not turning up to dance class, not being at the start step.
::Anthony Bird
And they make newcomers feel so welcome. And they're so friendly. It it's the most home I felt community in my life.
::Dan Hall
And you do take your top off.
::Anthony Bird
People tend not to take that job for.
::Dan Hall
So in: ::Anthony Bird
It's pretty much normal for a gay man in his late 50s. I think it's I it has very little effect on my life. And I take my meds on today. The side effects for the meds, they kind of stopped about 15 years ago for me. So I don't, you know, so I take my meds once a day.
::Anthony Bird
I can see my consultant twice a year, and that's pretty much it.
::Dan Hall
ne that you would be alive in: ::Anthony Bird
When I had the shingles and I was losing my eyesight, I probably couldn't have imagined that a couple of years later, I probably could have done actually. Yeah.
::Dan Hall
So then, Tony, you didn't die?
::Anthony Bird
No.
::Dan Hall
And you're not dead now.
::Anthony Bird
It's. Yeah, it's fine. It's so long ago now. And that thing was so different. It just feels like a different lifetime, really.
::Dan Hall
So what's your future like, do you think? What do you see ahead of you?
::Anthony Bird
I've got a lot more dancing. Just a a pretty normal future. I mean, honestly, it's, I'm happier now than I have been at any, any point in my life.
::Dan Hall
Well, you got to live in a part of society. When the Golden Girls was commissioned and frankly, frankly, that's quite a happy time for all of us.
::Anthony Bird
And as a gay teen. What? Yeah.
::Dan Hall
Essential I know. God bless channel for. So then chances are this digital file is going to outlast both of us. Because I'm also a gay man in his 50s. So considering this will outlive us both, what would your postcard to the world be, Tony? Your message to the world that you want to float out there into the wilderness.
::Anthony Bird
I kind of have two which you would find. One would be a generic HIV one, which is that, you know, HIV is you know, HIV has changed, these days with HIV, if you're on HIV mode successfully, then you can't even pass the virus on during sex even without a condom. The other one would just be just a more generic one, which I think that as you get older, I think it's really important to keep an open heart and an open mind.
::Anthony Bird
And that's the best way for staying young.
::Dan Hall
And that brings us to the end of this episode of HIV the morning after. My sincere thanks to you, Tony Bud, for coming on here and speaking about your experiences. It's and you're very different experiences. It's lovely. No one has the same story. So thank you so much for coming on from thank you.