AIDS was an unbelievable catastrophe. It still is. Is this news? 

If you’ve been watching Channel 4‘s It’s a Sin, is it all news to you? Had you heard of the suffering, stigma and bigotry of the 1980s and 1990s?

I was 24 in 1981, when, very stealthily, the epidemic began. I could call myself a survivor. All my close friends survived. Others were not so lucky; they died or lived amid an appalling cacophony of death for years.

I almost couldn’t face It’s a Sin. Now I have, and I realise that I’ve spent the past 35 years trying not to think about AIDS. Why was it that the only deaths I knew of were friends of friends, or people I’d drifted apart from? Did I somehow contrive this?

The London Lighthouse, the largest hospice and day centre for AIDS patients in the world - much visited by Princess Diana and, now it emerges, Princess Margaret - was in the street where I lived. I used to avoid walking past it. 

If you were there, you’re supposed to be a witness. But, actually, it’s so difficult to unravel the past, particularly your own. In my first 10 or even 15 years from 1987 as an English teacher in various London schools, it seems now - astonishingly - as if AIDS didn’t exist. But this was the worst time. Deaths peaked in 1996. 

Gay teachers: No nonsense from colleagues

I was packed off to a “tough” boys’ school in East London for teaching practice. It was quite jolly there. All the English teachers were out gay men. The only woman went on to be a super-head. 

Contrary to what you might assume from It’s a Sin, the Tories and the tabloid press weren’t having their way everywhere. Powerful, in the background, was a strong counter-movement, championed by some local authorities, promoting a radical programme of progressive education, anti-racism and gay rights. The Inner London Education Authority was one of the most ferocious of those local authorities. 

So, some people, like me, were fortunate - privileged enough to get into the teaching profession in the first place, then landing up in a school in the right area. It’s a Sin isn’t about those sorts of people. 

My friend, whom I lost touch with and who later died of AIDS in 1992, was head of English in several London schools, and had a similar experience to me, as far as I can tell. He encountered no nonsense from colleagues - or, if he did, he gave as good as he got. His method in the classroom was diva-ish glamour. He was adored by pupils, although he was not fully out there. 

You had to be a certain sort of person: bold and with resources. But you were always angry, always fighting. I’m wondering if I did enough fighting and rather too much worrying about GCSE coursework. 

The loathsome Clause 28

Everybody knew about the loathsome Clause 28, new legislation from 1988, with its horrible snaky wording forbidding local authorities from promoting “the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretend family relationship” and indeed “promoting” homosexuality at all. 

This was the Tories’ triumph over the “loony left”, who were trying to “destroy family values” with “disgusting” books, such as Jenny Lives with Martin and Eric, written for children about a young girl living with her father and his partner. A copy was found in a school library controlled by the ILEA. 

The government got away with Clause 28 because of the revulsion and fear that had been whipped up against gay people over AIDS. “Perverts to blame for killer plague” was The Sun’s idea of a useful headline. 

I’m sorry to say that people like me just lived with Clause 28. There weren’t any prosecutions, we were always told: they weren’t used. Only now do I see how damaging the legislation was. It hindered the progress that had been made against discrimination after the 1967 partial decriminalisation of homosexuality. It prevented schools from having proper programmes of health and sex education, a problem that hasn’t fully been resolved to this day, even though Clause 28 was repealed in England in 2003. 

Behind the scenes, education officials did their best. Whitehall made a video about AIDS for use in schools, a retired director of education tells me, but it seems it was never used. Clause 28 must have been the insuperable barrier.

Even so - and I hope this isn’t wishful thinking - could it be, in some ways, that Clause 28 was slamming the stable door after the horse had bolted? In all my time in the English classroom until 2012, the entire curriculum was an assault on discrimination, prejudice and bias. You couldn’t avoid it. The GCSE required analysis of advertising and a comparison of tabloid and broadsheet newspaper treatments of the same story. The set texts were To Kill a Mockingbird, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Beloved. 

It wasn’t enough. Homophobia wasn’t actually mentioned. But it was moving in the right direction. 

The impact of AIDS

In the wider world, had the impact of Aids been quite what it seemed? Right in the midst of the epidemic, there was kickback. Princess Diana held the hand of an AIDS patient in 1987. And, as early as 1985, Elizabeth Taylor was making her uncompromising views heard in America. 

Vast amounts of money were raised. The London Lighthouse was built at the cost of millions. The support lobby was rich and high-profile. To huge numbers of people, the ravings of the tabloid press seemed more and more idiotic. Then, also in 1987, came the first gay kiss in EastEnders, a huge turning point for an early-evening mainstream soap. 

At tragic cost, AIDS did not, in the end, set back the gay cause. British homophobia was always a ridiculous pretence, demonstrated by the fact that most of the older female population were enthralled by outrageous gay figures like Kenneth Williams, Liberace and Danny La Rue, living in plain sight, far more gay than anybody would care to be today. But still the fiction could be kept up that gay people didn’t really exist: they were just shadowy ghost-figures, living some kind of half-life elsewhere. 

AIDS smashed all that up for good. Ironically, one of the wrecking balls was the insistence by Norman Fowler, then health minister, that the only way effectively to combat the onslaught of AIDS was to talk frankly about gay sex - which saved lives. There could be no more pretending after that. And no more shame and guilt. 

Things are far from perfect now. Olly Alexander, lead actor in It’s a Sin, has spoken of homophobic bullying at school. He was born in 1990. 

In my time, I saw small and big changes. Pupils wearing red AIDS ribbons on World AIDS Day, cake sales for AIDS charities…

And then, in 2008, the head announced at the first assembly of the summer term that Mr James, the deputy head, would now be known as Mr James-Robbins, having formed a civil partnership during the holidays.

Would we all applaud? We did - and do - but we must fight on. The world can always be a better place. 

Thomas Blaikie was a secondary English teacher for 25 years. He is author of Blaikie’s Guide to Modern Manners (4th Estate)

It’s a Sin is showing on Channel4 and All4

Picture credit: Ben Blackall