HOMELY HOMILY

BY GLENN STEVENS

No Shame

Brighton in 1986. Me, a tourist, checking out the Sunday night club, the Pink Coconut, with my mate Trevor. When the club had shut, I followed my nose to the nearest cruising spot in town and quickly became acquainted with a guy called Graham (Bona Clone to his friends). He was everything I had fancied – big moustache, leather chaps, 501s leather jacket, bottle of poppers and a cheeky smile.

I went back with Graham, had a great time and thought Brighton was the type of town where I would like to live. Within a week I was back and staying on Trevor’s floor. On one of my trips out on the town I went to the club known as Manhattan’s where I was to meet Graham once again. He worked there serving drinks from an alcove bar away, the walls were covered in pictures of ’80s style clones, Graham fitted in perfectly.

“What I'm so pleased about is through the Brighton AIDS Memorial project, Names Reading project and Hankie Quilt project is that collectively we can all remember and celebrate those we have lost to AIDS, including Graham: Bona Clone a lot of the time, Bona Moan on others, but always and forever, Lovely Graham”

On Graham’s invitation, I moved from Trevor’s floor and in with him. Our relationship burnt bright and short, but a lovely connection was made between us.

I’d see Graham on the scene all the time, then one day he came up to me to say he had been diagnosed HIV+. He was the first person I knew personally to tell me this; back then AIDS was still something that happened across the pond, then London and then, all too quickly, Brighton.

It seems crazy that I’d not seen Graham for about six months when I bumped into him on Brighton Pier, and we had a lovely catch up. He looked great in ripped 501s and white T-shirt, same smile on his face; then a few weeks later I heard he was in hospital having succumbed to AIDS.

I visited him just the once, he was unable to speak, but I am glad I had the chance to say goodbye.

I was recently talking to the lovely Harry Hillery about his fantastic Instagram project, Brighton AIDS Memorial; the project where people are invited to post photos and memories of people they have known and loved who have died of AIDS. I was a little apprehensive of uploading a photo of Graham but I believe it is an honour to remember and remind others of him at his best.

My reservation of publishing it is one I have gladly shaken off. Graham died from an AIDS-related illness, there is no shame in that and no stigma should be associated with it. What Harry’s project so wonderfully does is allows us to remember and celebrate the lives of those we lost to that virus.

What I'm so pleased about is through the Brighton AIDS Memorial project, Names Reading project and Hankie Quilt project is that collectively we can all remember and celebrate those we have lost to AIDS, including Graham: Bona Clone a lot of the time, Bona Moan on others, but always and forever, Lovely Graham.