It’s A Sin.. it’s and it’s givi those who d S a triumph.. ing a voice to didn’t make it
Charity boss hails TV d
MISSED
Chris, left, with his partner Lawrence in 1995
When Chris Creegan first heard about the powerful new drama It’s A Sin, he wasn’t sure he would be able to watch.
The series tells the story of a group of young people who become friends after moving to London in 1981 only to have their world torn apart by the HIV epidemic.
Chris, who is gay, lived in London during the 80s when the Aids crisis in the UK was at its height.
He lost his partner of 10 years to the illness and many friends.
Chris, 59, who has lived in Edinburgh for almost 20 years, said: “HIV is one of my life’s big fault lines but I survived, despite more than a few skirmishes along the way.
“I know Russell T Davies’s past work so I expected It’s A Sin to be brilliant but what really took my breath away is
MOVE
Chris in London in 1985 just how much it resonates. This is our story – it could be the story of me, of my partner Lawrence and of our friends.
“I want people to watch it and understand what we went through. It gives a voice to those who didn’t make it.”
Chris, whose birth family are from Dundee but was adopted and grew up in Manchester, moved to London in 1982. Three years later he met Lawrence Buckley at a trade union conference they were both attending through their work.
Within just weeks of starting to date, Lawrence broke the news he was HIV positive.
Charity boss Chris said: “So many gay men all migrated to London to live and be part of the bigger gay community. We were all Jimmy Somerville’s Smalltown Boys.
“Lawrence was an extraordinary guy. He didn’t have the easiest childhood, came from a working class area of Liverpool, but decided as a teenager he was going to go to Oxford University and he did.
“He studied classics, was ferociously intelligent, incredibly articulate and then this terrible thing happened and he was very angry about it.
“Lawrence was one of the f irst few hundred gay men in the UK to be diagnosed.
“At the time the Aids epidemic was in its early stages, although it had been around in the States for longer.
“Lawrence was diagnosed in 1984 so had known he had it when we first met and told me two or th We were sitting on Victoria Embankme the Thames with light
“Some of my friend hadn’t told me before w but I knew about Aid Aids activist in a min gone into our relatio with my eyes open. I w at the time and I know people would have got u walked away but already quite smitte made the decision to
Init ial ly, Lawre health remained in a condition and, as the co relationship deepened bought a home togeth enjoyed as many ho as possible.
But the heartache o was never far away. Li characters in It’s A Sin and Lawrence lost friends to the diseas experienced first-han ignorance and prejudi surrounded the illnes
Chris, who is chair Association for Men “Aids was everywher days – a full- frontal sensibilities. It prescr lived and loved.
“It killed two of Law boyfriends, includi knew had infected him of people who died – f igures. When Law
hospital, I would visit him and you would see all these familiar faces.
“But Aids wasn’t the only killer in our midst. Stigma was no less deadly. One of my closest friends, Tim, died of pneumonia in bed, alone, undiagnosed. He’d been too afraid, too ashamed, to tell a soul that he feared he had Aids.
“We talked about HIV often. He knew Lawrence had Aids – all our friends and family knew – but for whatever reason he never said anything and I missed all the clues.
“We had other friends who, when they were very ill or died, had families that reacted in a way that was so sad and even hostile, like in the TV show.
“When our friend Bob died, he had a cat and we’d arranged to take it. Bob hadn’t been in touch with his parents but they turned up and took over.
“We went to Bob’s house, his mum came to the door, passed the cat over and said, ‘ We WARNING Aids
didn’t approve of his lifestyle,’ ad from the 80s
and shut the door. His family organised a private funeral. None of Bob’s friends were there – his family were ashamed. That was common.
“Lawrence received wonderful medical care but when he was first diagnosed he remembered being in a hospital room on his own and a nurse came in to deliver a newspaper – dressed in a mask and gown – and wouldn’t touch him.
“Another time he vomited on the floor and no one cleaned it up. Eventually
SMASH HIT
Scenes from Channel 4 show
It’s A Sin someone did, again masked and gowned. Those moments stayed with him.”
Lawrence died in July 1995, aged 37, with his mum and Chris by his side.
Twenty- f ive years on – and on Lawrence’s instruction – Chris has built a new life for himself. Three years ago he married Allan, his partner of more than 15 years.
He is using lockdown to write his memoir and said much that has happened in this last year has reminded him of the HIV epidemic.
He added: “It’s A Sin could not be timelier. It shows the coronavirus pandemic is not the first plague in living memory.
“Forty years ago the a r r iva l of HIV framed our world but governments were slow to act.
It took two years to even begin to identi fy HIV, another 13 before the arrival of antiretroviral therapy. There’s still no vaccine.
“The global death tol l is
3 2 m i l l ion .
HIV hasn’t gone away.”
It’s A Sin is on Channel 4,
Fridays, 9pm.
All episodes are available on All4.
MEMORIES Chris says It’s A Sin mirrors his life back in the 80s