At that time I was working a supervisor for the fledgling ‘National AIDS Helpline’
which had expanded in the previous year to be funded by the DoH and to run for around 12 hours each day from two bases, in Glasgow and London. In fact it wasn’t officially opened as such though, for some five months, on World AIDS day on the 1st December 1988, by David Mellor (the Minister for Health by that time) with the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Donald Acheson also present (whom like Lord Wolfenden I have been reliably told by sources, always ‘stood up’ for the gay community).
Based on the experience that I had had, in the field, over the past decade or so, I considered applying for the job. My concern remained, that as our experience with Clause 28 had shown, we would never get very far if we remained ‘on the sidelines’; or ‘outside the door’; we needed to be influencing opinion from the inside to really effect any change. I was really worried that the government were going to go down the ‘Iceberg’ and ‘Volcano’ route by producing something equally shocking for gay men and that this would have a hugely negative effect on the community, if it did so. I knew from my personal day to day experience and my work at Lesbian and Gay Switchboard and NAH by then, that gay men were struggling. Even I was struggling and I was meant to be the one being supportive, for heaven’s sake! Should I apply for it and try and work ‘from the inside’ to develop something that would be more positive, more supportive, more useful to gay and bisexual men, in the messages and information it supplied?
My diary for the 16th July 1988 gives very little away though. It briefly notes that:
‘I decided to at least apply for the HEA job on Thursday, it’s called a ‘Men who have Sex with Men’ post (somewhat strange terminology?!) and has a two year contract. I might get an interview. An interesting, very challenging job in theory, probably hindered by rules, regulations and red tape (and potentially naff campaigns?)’.
And that was it, I wasn’t exactly overwhelmingly positive about it was I? However, by the 1st September I was writing:
Went for the job interview at the HEA today,for the project officer job for ‘Men who have sex with Men‘ (god, that really is so unwieldy!). Seems that I got the job. A huge challenge for me to cope with it but as it‘s more or less what I‘ve decided I needed to do, I guess I‘m happy about taking on the post. I feel I should write more about such a ‘momentous‘ occasion but I think it can wait. I‘ll probably start sometime around the end of September‘.
And that’s it. If I’d had any idea at all then, just how it was going to take over the next decade of my life, I’d probably have written a lot more. I think somewhere at the back of my mind was the idea that if it went wrong I could always resign and walk away. And my brain was also occupied by a million other things at the time, related to how I thought we should be progressing messages around safer sex education. I went on to write:
‘The rushes back from the studio today for’ Kiss’ (this was the second of what became the Sex Love & Life trilogy). They look quite good, better than the others did. They are slightly overexposed for the black background we used but nothing we can’t correct in post processing production. I’m relieved and pleased again. My confidence in the actors and crew was sound. Now onto number three as soon as possible, provisionally entitled ‘Taste‘. Lots of bodies in this one!‘
My boss Derek, when we knew each other well enough, eventually told me that I did not do a very good interview, others did a lot better. Perhaps, unwittingly, my slight reticence at the idea of taking on the work was showing. However, my experience was very wide by that time and I was no longer a youngster. The panel decided to take something of a risk by inviting me to take up the position, which in my recollection now, after some thought, I accepted. The diary tends to suggest otherwise!
The reticence I do show, however, was not altogether surprising, I knew that it was likely to be a challenge. We were going to be developing campaigns in the middle of an epidemic, we were going to be targeting groups that had not been specifically approached by the Health Authority (and by implication the Government) in this way before, there would be extremely high expectations from many health organisations (both in the statutory and non statutory sectors) in relation to the work we would present and my peers within the community and it was a new division within the HEA, with no previous history or record of achievement. What could possibly go wrong?
On the 1st September, an official letter from the personnel Department at the HEA, was drafted, duly confirming my appointment. The starting salary was to be £13,250 annually plus £1,267 London Weighting Allowance. However, it seems that it was not sent out immediately, as I didn’t receive (and accept the post) until the 22nd September, three full weeks later. I already wondered if they were having cold feet about me! The first contract was for two years, with a three to six month probationary period. In fact, if I had known the challenges we would face, I might well have hesitated even longer before ringing Teresa Norman in the HEA’s HR Department and saying ‘yes, I’ll take the job’.
On my second day there (October 4th) I wrote:
‘Today has been better than my first day at the HEA, which felt rather odd. I thought that it might be difficult to fit into the place and with the people there but today was certainly better. I’m rather out on a limb, as the office I’ve been allocated is away from the rest of the AIDS division and consequently I feel a bit cut off from it. I suppose I‘ll get used to it.
It had its uses in fact though, as I was right next door to the Chief Executive’s office, Spencer Hagard at the time and it was surprising what you could glean from the comings and goings into it.
Also, a bit annoyed as my contract is in fact only 18 months now, as the job was supposed to be advertised in April and was postponed for some time. I feel I’ll get along with people though. Whilst I shouldn’t moan, I’ve do have a feeling it’s going to be quite arduous at times.
And yet it’s funny too how people come into your life , when you have no idea quite how large an influence they’ll go on to have in it. I wrote: ‘I have a consultant sitting opposite me, Amanda Bradshaw, who is also working here on the AIDS programme. She seems pretty sharp actually and I think could be really useful for the AIDS Division in future’. Little did I know that Amanda would go on to be a key component of the programme, overseeing and developing so much of the work we were doing and in the process became a great personal, lifelong friend, as I, in turn, became a godfather to her son, Joseph.
Remarkably, (given how much paper I collected, in the time I was there) I still have the sketch that Derek made for me that very first day, as to how he saw the programme area developing over the next six months. He produced a draft taken from a strategy paper that had been written for how they expected my job to go forwards. He assumed that there would be four key areas I’d need to be working on. The first, ‘Education’ would be a ‘nose to the ground’ area, working with the experience of an advisory panel, this feeding into my planning, and allowing the formulation of ideas into concrete proposals. The second area would be of developing relevant ‘materials’ for the target audience, (MWHSWM) by drafting them, allowing for an amendment process in consultation with the DoH and the advisory group, then arranging for their publication and distribution to the target groups.
The third area would be to develop advertising aimed at the target group, by developing proposals for briefs by looking at gaps, working on research responses again with reference to the advisory groups current and past experience, then developing & amending the brief as necessary, to allow for the creation of concept boards by the advertising agency and then for these to go through a process of internal review & discussion to ensure everyone involved was satisfied, looking at legal issues where necessary and seeking the DOH’s final external agreement to proceed. The final area would be on day to day tasks: admin, answering calls, writing letters, filing paper cuttings, attending meetings and involvement and input as needed, with the rest of the work that the AIDS Division was going to be producing.
Retrospectively and with the benefit of hindsight, I can see a range of issues, concerns and potential problems that would be likely to develop from working in these areas but at the time, especially given what seemed to be the important role being asked of the advisory group, it all seemed a reasonable way forward. Clearly, I had never had to work with such complexities on so many issues before when I’d been giving advice and producing safer sex work but given the nature of the work and the budget involved it all seemed reasonable. And so, by as soon as the 6th October, I’ve written in my diary:
Feeling quite settled at work now, I think I’ll get along with people there ok and cope quite well with the work and working patterns. Looking back, it is a little strange that I wrote so little about getting the job at the HEA, because it is a fairly dramatic job change to have to handle. Perhaps I’m too blase about these things?
I think my assessment was probably true. I was.
Sex, love and life (The Sacrifice) 3.04 BMP and the ‘Ritts’ men
