Sexual health matters! It really does!
Today is the 39th anniversary of the first recorded announcement of what was to be called AIDS – with a virus eventually discovered and, by 1985, named HIV. Some similarities between the early days of AIDS and the current COVID19 pandemic, but obviously huge dissimilarities too.
Gosh, seven years have passed since poor Lee Rigby was murdered, brutally and savagely. This was the first blog page I ever wrote. Still occasionally pass the site of his killing and you wouldn’t know anything had happened there now. RIP Lee Rigby. Your memory lives on.
The traffic signs that warn road users passing Woolwich Barracks that there are “soldiers marching” tell us lies today, well for the moment at least. Main roads around Woolwich Barracks are Sunday-afternoon-style quiet and what traffic does pass bye is as slow as a funeral cortege over road humps.
For the moment, gone are the soldiers in uniform busily cycling past, or the friends from different regiments laughing, joking and chatting together as they walk across campus. The totally unprovoked and barbaric murder of Drummer Lee Rigby tightly casts a melancholic pall across this part of town.
When soldiers are grievously injured or killed in action, in the “theatre of war”, it is a tragedy; many make the “ultimate sacrifice” which politicians tell us is so that the rest of us can sleep safer in our beds at night. The loved ones left behind trying to make sense of…
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Originally posted on My 'memories, dreams and reflections':
In an unprecedented move, as of summer 2016, the British Royal Family website carries a number of stories about people living with HIV. HRH The Prince Harry recently delivered an inspirational speech at the Worlds AIDS Conference, in Durban, South Africa, in which he said: “We cannot…
As children, we would get some old clothes, stuff them with newspapers, and make them into a “Guy”. “Penny for the Guy, please, Mister!” 
With so many of the epoch-changing events that might happen during a person’s lifetime, the fall of the Berlin Wall (Berlin Mauerfall) must rank as one such major world event to have happened in my own life, as for all of us who lived through those days.
For the full blog, click here: This is the year!
Some of my WordPress pages have been discovered – twice – by filming companies! The first, resulted in an interview with the wonderful Rupert Everett. 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.
You can see the full story here: TV interview: Princess Diana and HIV
Sunday 24th September, 1989. That was the first day of the rest of my life! I started on an HIV in-patient service, at St Mary’s Paddington, the very next day. The experience changed my life and set me up for what happened seven months later: April, 1990. Being interviewed for my first teaching post, just after cremating a patient, that one day led to the start of my career in teaching. The first post was as a lecturer-practitioner in “HIV and AIDS”; numerous posts since then, leading now to professor in sexualities and genders: health and well-being. Here’s what happened, from Rome 2018.
With the final funds from my National Teaching Fellowship award, I planned on going to Rome, for an HIV nursing conference. I saw this grey haired man with a little dog, something like one of mine. So I smiled at the dog, then said “Buongiorno, Signore” to him. When he told me he was a professor, I burst with excitement as I told him I had just become one, too!
01 Sept 2019, and just reading on Twitter, how so many people get moments when they struggle with doctoral studies, made me think back, and remember! My advice would be: stay with it! Get the support you need and don’t give up! You have got so much to offer the world, by committing to such a huge task. It will be worth it in the end!
Today is the 39th anniversary of the first recorded announcement of what was to be called AIDS – with a virus eventually discovered and, by…
Originally posted on Dr David T Evans, OBE NTF PFHEA RN(T): The traffic signs that warn road users passing Woolwich Barracks that there are “soldiers…
Originally posted on My 'memories, dreams and reflections': In an unprecedented move, as of summer 2016, the British Royal Family website carries a number of…
As children, we would get some old clothes, stuff them with newspapers, and make them into a “Guy”. “Penny for the Guy, please, Mister!” via…
