Grid

I decided to make this panel because I still cannot figure out just how I felt about Grid.

He was one of the most solitary people I ever knew, he would not, or could not handle relationships on a one to one basis. I have deliberately avoided using his full name.

His camp name was Ingrid, who knows why? He hated it and told me so when I used it one day, fair enough. I asked him if I could use the name Grid and he said yes, most other people were not allowed to call him this, hence the reason I use this name for his panel.

When I suggested to several of his friends that I was going to make this panel using to name Grid they said he disliked being called by this name, but I know from his own lips that I could use this name.

He was not a very communicative person, he was intolerant of many things, simply because they did not affect him. But that is neither here nor there. He had AIDS and he died. Therefore he now has a panel on the UK Quilt.

I have kept the panel as simple as he would have wanted it. He loved leather therefore I have put a pair of leather trousers on the panel. He was also into red hankies therefore they are depicted as well.

Dear Grid,

You may have been a difficult person to get on with, but you will not be forgotten.

Love Mildew & friends

We will always remember (BP)

As Group Co-ordinators of the two South West based BP (Body Positive) groups we had heard of the UK Names Project, in fact we had both seen parts of the Quilt at various Exhibitions and Conferences. We realised that if we wanted to make panels for our friends here in the South West, we could be looking at about twenty panels!!

We approached the UK Names Project and asked if we could make one panel as a symbol of recognition to those friends of ours who have had their lives taken by AIDS. They said yes and our problems started - how do we make a panel to represent the varied personalities, our loved ones, and the friends that through adversity made us laugh and showed us how to live?

SYMBOLISM was suggested by our joint membership of 50 people all of whom live with or are affected by HIV/AIDS. Our yellow lettering is a reflection of the copious amounts of sunshine that has helped heal us and restore us, it is also a symbol of the beaches we have walked with our friends, whose footprints have now been washed away. The blue background is the symbol of the clear blue skies we shared through the summers and a taffeta is the sea that we paddled in, dunked wheelchair wheels in and swam in as free as the representative dolphins. The green felt symbolises our land mass, it symbolises the Moors of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset that we have trekked over and for some, now have as their final resting place. The red silk ribbons are a reminder to others outside of our area that HIV/AIDS is an increasing problem here in the South West.

Making our panel has enabled many of us who live with HIV/AIDS to let go of some of our feelings that surround our missing friends, it is also a permanent living testimony that we will always, always remember them.

Paul N BP Devon
Andy A BP Somerset

Dear Joe

I stumbled across your words when I felt
like I was dying. You dared me to
dream as you dared all of us to dream.

You gave me back my life. And I risked
believing that I really could fly, that I
really could be strong enough, that I
would never be alone and that the power
of our love really is invincible.

Your loss is an impenetrable silence.

Love Arthur X

Carl Morris

I met Carl nearly ten years ago when I started my first teaching job at Leegomery School, Shropshire. We worked together in adjoining classrooms and became great friends. We wrote silly pantomimes for the staff to perform to the children at Christmas time, full of local jokes and a bottle of sherry behind the stage curtain for the staff.

We shared a love of music. With another teacher we wrote musical plays mainly at the Balti restaurant opposite Carl’s house. I have fabulous memories of staging these extravaganzas. The son ‘What I did for love’ which I have quoted on the panel comes from the play ‘Theeus and the Minotaur’ that we presented. Ariadne sang the song and it was one of Carl’s favourites.

Eventually I moved to Winchester and Carl gave up teaching to travel around the world. It was in Australia he saw the quilt of love and asked me later to make a panel for him.

Soon after returning to England, Carl was confirmed HIV positive. He was brave and cheerful as always about the prognosis. Carl was a joker, full of life, generous, warm hearted, a positive person. I believed that Carl would lead a long full life with HIV. He used to joke that it was the best thing that had happened to him because he got to retire early and the AZT got rid of a long standing skin condition he had! Unfortunately he developed Aids very quickly and died within two years.

Even to the end when he was in a hospice having great difficulty breathing he was joking telling people to ‘talk amongst your selves while I go down for some air’.

In his will Carl left me a large box of Rupert the Bear annuals which he treasured so I have included Rupert on the panel. Also an extract from a poem he asked to be read at his funeral.

Carl was a special person and a wonderful friend. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of him or miss him. Making this panel was the last tangible act I could do for him and a way of saying Good-bye Carl.

Angela Herkan
25.01.95

Margaret McKenzie

Information about this panel - every stitch has been sewn with love by myself. Margaret’s first love was horses and that is why I put a horse on. She also did a parachute jump a few months ago. She got married in May so that is her wedding picture in the middle, the moon and the stars are to light her way always, the hearts and flower represents the love that surrounded her by myself and other people and it was signed by people who loved and helped her.

Trudy McKenzie

Georgie Long

I have just completed my panel for the quilt in memory of my partner GEORGIE LONG who died on the 26.10.92 aged 32 years.

Georgie and I met at primary school in Londonderry, Northern Island when we were 9 years old, and spent the next 23 years together as friends, family and lovers. We eventually decided that we were the two halves of the same person, you know "Soul Mates". We arrived in London in 1978 and like everyone else at that time we partied till we dropped. It seemed like every night there was a new bar or club to check out, so we did.

Georgie said to me near the end that we had squeezed 3 lifetimes into one, and I know that on the whole we didn’t regret a single moment. He was a beautiful man, very sensitive, very loving and made me feel safer than anyone I have ever known. I can’t write a favourite memory on this page, there have been so many and I couldn’t decide which to write. So for the moment they must stay in my head.

Georgie has gone to join his mother and father, sister and brother who’s deaths caused him great pain but I know that he is at peace and very happy now, and will always be with me until we can be together again.

If it is possible I would really love Georgie’s panel to be displayed in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, Bournemouth, Dorset and London.

Thank-you everyone involved for giving me the chance to express this.

So for now

Love and best wishes

Frankie.

Jay Terry

1 MARCH 1962 - 21 JUNE 1993

It is very difficult to paint an accurate picture of Jay; his was a very quixotic character prone to extreme bouts of depression - usually immediately after Christmas - and extreme highs. In many ways his was a "Peter Pan" character - refusing to see ill in anybody, always extremely surprised and hurt when people were not uniformly kind and considerate, always putting other people’s feelings before his own and forever having a child’s almost simple/naive view of life.

His passions in life were many and varied. Musically his loves were Abba and Barbara Streisand - had he still been alive he would have paid any amount of money for seats at her recent concert tour. He was a television addict especially for programs such as Dallas and Dynasty although he refused to watch any British soap. Other programs such as French & Saunders, Absolutely Fabulous, Ruby Wax and American comedies such as the Golden Girls and Roseanne were great favourites.

Probably, his most addictive passion was for feature films either at the cinema or taped from the television - I think we were probably one of the first people to have Sky installed as the movie channels were, for Jay, a touch of heaven. Again, his tastes in films were many and varied ranging from the Carry on films through to horror movies such as the Evil Dead and the Freddie films through to Alfred Hitchcock movies through to anything with Bette Midler through to the Indiana Jones movies through to classic Broadway musicals. If one tried it would be impossible to put a single label on such wide-ranging tastes. Looking back over the twelve years that we lived - and loved - together life was not, as in any relationship, always easy.

Jay was the sort of person who periodically needed new people and excitements in his life although I learned to understand that his feelings for me never varied. Three events - all related to Disney theme parks - stick out in my memory of Jay.

The first was our first - of five - visits to Florida. Jay loved all things Disney and had always wanted to go to Florida so the first time that we could afford to do so has become a treasured memory. I will never forget the expression of pure wonderment on Jay’s face when we first approached the Magic Kingdom nor the fact that as soon as the rope barrier was dropped I had to run to keep up with him. It was as if he had finally arrived home - feelings that I now find transferred to me!

The second event was the opening of Euro Disney. We had planned to go to the opening for a long time and duly booked into a small hotel in Paris. The day of the opening saw us, with about three hours to spare, on the Metro heading for the station at Euro Disney but found that the French drivers were on strike and made everybody get out at the stop before Euro Disney. Chaos reigned and when, after about two hours, a sole coach arrived the melee got quite fierce as a couple of hundred people all tried to get on the coach. Needless to say, Jay was determined and, by brute force, we managed to get on the coach and, miraculously, arrived in time for the opening. It was magical to be there but also, because the authorities had broadcast not to go on the opening day as they were expecting hordes of people, it really wasn’t very crowded and we spent a wonderful day going round the rides barely having to queue.

The final memory that I have to offer again concerns Florida. Jay slipped away on June 21 1993, we were in Florida five weeks before this date. Luckily, for reasons that I can’t remember, Jay had an American visa therefore there was no problem with immigration. By this time, although not ill with anything specific that we were aware of, he was extremely thin and got very tired very easily. Hence, I had the dubious pleasure of pushing him round in a wheelchair which, when you understand that at American theme parks - and Disney in particular - people with any form of disability are treated, in the best possible sense of the word, as special people and therefore get real VIP treatment Jay absolutely lapped up! On first arriving at Magic Kingdom when we were not aware of this I still had to run - pushing Jay - to the first ride which was Splash Mountain. I nearly died of a heart attack only to find that people with disabilities were able to jump the queues by entering through the exit! This applied wherever we went and meant that we probably went on more rides, more often than ever before and Jay, because of the way he was treated, was in Seventh Heaven. At that time, although not knowing that the end was so close, I think, although never spoken, we knew this would be our last trip to Florida and did all those things - helicopter rides, balloon rides - which we had always said that we would do but never seemed to get round to in the past.

Jay came back exhausted, was admitted for respite to St Michael’s Hospice - a truly wonderful place - and, sadly, slipped away from me a short time later. I sometimes wonder if we were right to go to Florida but know, deep down, that we were. There is nothing that Jay would have preferred to do so close to the end; it was a particularly magical time for him and provides me with a rich source of wonderful memories. I was with Jay when he slipped away and, to this day, I am convinced that he chose when to leave. Whenever, we played board games Jay was always determined to be the winner. He found himself in a no-win situation and when he found the start of a few KS marks on him which to somebody who always took extreme pride in his appearance was almost unbearable I am convinced that he felt that the only way he could be a "winner" was to leave on his terms before the KS spread or before he succumbed to a really bad illness.

Compiled by: GRAHAM DOBBIN (PARTNER)

Full name: JEREMY NORMAN WHIITEHEAD TERRY

With much love and thanks for all their help and support during the making of the panel to Dawn Cameron and Paula Holter without whom this work of love would not have been possible.