Teaching an HIV foundations session, with about 200 first-year students of nursing & midwifery, a few years ago, I noticed that most of them were all very young, mostly about 18-19 years old.  The majority, of course, would have no lived memory of HIV or AIDS from those early days.  I tried jogging them memories by calling to mind famous names; no such luck!  Freddie Mercury? Yes, they knew of him.  Rock Hudson? Only some of the old(er) film fans. Liberaci? Nope!  Then I said “So what about Princess Diana?” Surely they ad heard of Princess Diana?  I was trying for them to recall the great works she did, especially for breaking down barriers around both AIDS and HIV.  One of them near the front whispered to an equally young student next to her: “Princess Diana didn’t die of AIDS, did she?”

Some of my WordPress pages have been discovered – three times – by various filming companies!  The first WordPress page spotted by TV company, resulted in an interview with the wonderful Rupert Everett, in 50 Shades of Gay, on the 50th anniversary of the first partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in England and Wales (1967).  Then, in the week I celebrated my 30th anniversary of starting as a nurse on an HIV ward, at St Mary’s Paddington, I was interviewed in the Armourers’ Hall, London, for a documentary series being made for the CNN American audience, on the The Windsors.

Having these WordPress pages spotted is a good learning point to get across the to MA in health care practice students I teach, on a module called “The Dynamics of dissemination: publishing, promoting and performing your studies“. I was telling the students, only this week, that writing (informally) e.g. on web pages like these blog sites, can help to back up, support, and get noticed across other media, too!

One of the episodes focused on Princess Diana.  The film company’s car picked me up at 7am and drove me in to central London.  The interview lasted just under a couple of hours.  At times, funny, at other times, poignant and sad, thinking back to some of those early days of HIV nursing in London, and the amazing role played by The Princess of Wales.

I was asked about one particular patient, who was a close friend of HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon.  His name and story are already in the public domain, as a documentary has been aired on TV about him, with his mother commenting, too, on his HIV in-patient care.  Of course I couldn’t make any comment at all, not even whether I had nursed him, in respect for the confidentiality due to him, and incumbent on me as a registered nurse.

But it’s true to say, a number of high profile people: Royal Family and even the then Archbishop of Canterbury, popped into the ward, to visit certain people.  The visits might have even been late at night, out of the sight of prying media.

It was wonderfully kind of that TV company to interview me (about an hour, by phone, a couple of months in advance, and then in front of the camera!)  Princess Diana and both her sons – Prince Harry, in particular – have put their heart and soul into challenging all forms of HIV and AIDS-related stigmas.  Even just the week before my interview, both Princes posted social media comments of support for former Wales Rugby international player, Gareth Thomas, and his open, honest talk of living with HIV.

When I first wrote this blog, the world was on the cusp of entering the 5th decade since AIDS was first labelled (1981), yet those scum-bags (am I allowed to say that?) in elements of the tabloid media, still perpetuate hate against people living with HIV.  They tried to force Gareth Thomas to ‘come out’ about his HIV status, by hounding him and his parents.  Would they have done the same had he been diagnosed with diabetes, or cancer, or a broken leg?  Those media people hounded Princess Diana (and her sons!) too. I told the story to the TV film crew of how tabloid media camera men were climbing up the drain pipes, outside one of the hospitals that Diana visited, when she officially opened an HIV dedicated ward.

But, I believe, every person who buys one of those gutter-press hate papers bares some responsibility, too, for perpetuating stigma!  As we say on Twitter #DontFundHate!

In 2020, I was fortunate to have been interviewed yet again, on Dian’s role in destigmatising HIV.  This second time, for the ITV Series, commemorating what would have been Diana’s 60th birthday, The Diana Decades, shown in July 2021.

Thank you to the three TV companies who have interview me; you’ve been great!  The interview teams were all so kind, giving me such a wonderful interview experience.  No matter how many words of mine they eventually used, I hope they help tell the story of Princess Diana, her sons, and their work done to help ‘normalise’ HIV infection and disease, and therefore #EndHIVstigma.

See: Diana’s Decades – the 1980s (episode 2) here

Please feel free to leave comments below.

David’s related HIV materials:

E-learning resource: HIV matters! Foundations for practice; part of the professorial master class series by David Evans.

Evans, D.T. (2019) HIV: if we can achieve normalised testing we’ll be helping to banish the stigma for good, Nursing Standard, first published on-line on 29/11/2019 at https://rcni.com/nursing-standard/opinion/comment/hiv-if-we-can-achieve-normalised-testing-well-be-helping-to-banish-stigma-good-155351 

Evans, D.T. and M. Dukes (2018) Current approaches to HIV prevention, treatment and care, Nursing Standard, 2018 Nov 1;33(8):45-52. doi: 10.7748/ns.2018.e11046. Epub 2018 Jun 20. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29923694