As I walked out of the Tate Modern, from the UK AIDS Quilt Memorial, I was thinking back to people I knew living with HIV in the 1980s and 90s… Some stories I’d like to share, here, are for particular people who didn’t have a quilt, well, not one that was visible that day. I am hoping that the reason there was no quilt is because they are still alive.
Category: Nursing
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Where were you when the Berlin Wall came down? With so many epoch-changing events during a person’s lifetime, the fall of the Berlin Wall ranks as one of the greatest world events during my own life time.
TV interview: Princess Diana and HIV
Some of my WordPress pages have been discovered – twice – by filming companies! The first, resulted in an interview with the wonderful Rupert Everrett. Then, in the week I celebrated my 30th anniversary of starting as a nurse on an HIV ward, I was interviewed for a documentary series on the Royal House of Windsor.
Tales of my Investiture
Dilectis et Fidelibus nostris What a week to be ill! Two days before the Investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace and I come down with sinusitis. Lucky I was well enough for the great day itself (Thursday 7th December 2017), because by Friday night, on top of asthma, I started the most horrendous bronchitis that I have ever had. …
Have you heard the one about a nun, a priest and a clairvoyant?
“Do you believe in love at first sight, or shall I walk round and come back again?”
You will be more old on Friday!
I took one sip and BANG! my poor head was gone!
[Not] The angel of death!
This is one of two stories I’ll tell you about a hospice I used to visit as a priest. I used to visit the hospice every couple of days or so. The staff new I was a registered nurse, as well as a local Catholic priest. Some days I’d go in early in…
Imagine having your bum pinched … by Rupert Everett!
More tales from The Coleherne What amazing fortune that I paid heed to all those people who have told me I should write my autobiography! Okay, well I’m not quite up for that, but it is a joy dotting down some stories, every now and again, for these memoires. Little could I have imagined what…
Hoc est corpus … hic est sanguinis
Similar to Damian’s story, Cosmo was a patient on the same ward, in and out with every new opportunistic infection or tumour his HIV could lay its grubby hands on. In the end he developed severe Kaposi’s sarcoma, with the classic bodily marks, from the tip of his nose, then dotted all over his body,…
The Queen is graciously pleased …
If you’ve read my blog page Buckingham Palace, then you’ll know exactly how much getting a “gong” off the Queen really fills me with profound joy. I have visited (inside) the Palace maybe a dozen or more times, once for the Garden Party outlined in that previous blog, and the rest for these 24 years…
Compassion in nursing care – we’re nothing without it!
Over the past few years, nurses and midwives in the UK have been reminded of the “6 Cs” of nursing care. I first heard my friend Joanne Bosanquet (MBE, Queen’s Nurse, Deputy Chief Nurse, Public Health England) promote the model. On the one hand, it’s great – especially for those new to the profession, to…
No room at the hospital for …
More tales from a student nurse.
#InternationalNursesDay2017
Tales of the Coleherne
My heart would be pounding as I got on the underground and headed for Earl’s Court … it seemed that there were more men ‘like me’ … some even used to wear pretty coloured hankies in their back pockets!
Trilogy of a beautiful Princess
From Diana to Harry:
HIV matters!