AIDS IN THE ’80S – ‘ALL OF A SUDDEN PEOPLE WOULD DISAPPEAR’
drama It’s A Sin, which has been lauded since first airing on Channel 4 last month and won critical acclaim for its portrayal of a group of gay friends living through the ’80s epidemic, Marcia explained how the adaptation of that time was similar to people’s lived experience.
“In It’s A Sin it’s true, people would move to Cardiff from the Valleys then all of a sudden they would disappear. You were losing people on a weekly basis.
“It’s sad. There aren’t an awful lot of us still left, I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones.
“I was working at the Tunnel and there would be regulars who would come in on their own and all of a sudden they would disappear. People were dropping like flies”
Being the resident drag host in Cardiff, many members of the community took solace in Marcia and other performers as a way of attaining new information about the progress of Aids.
An escape for people in an exceptionally dark time for the LGBT+ community, Marcia frequently headed Aids benefits in an effort to raise money for charities.
“We used to do four or five Aids benefits every year, and they were always hugely attended. We’d get people down like Lily Savage, David Dale, the big names at the time to perform”, Marcia said.
“It was an escape for people. There was always an underlying message, we did what we could to raise money and we always had buckets going around.
“Messages normally always came from the drag queens because they were the ones with the microphones. People would listen to (us). If you had some new information you would say it and people would listen, rather than reading a pamphlet.
“We’re always seen as matriarchs anyway. I’ve had lots of people who’ve come to me who’ve lost loved ones and partners to take solace. I’d always make the time to try and give as much time as I could to people.”
Marcia and other members of the LGBT+ community frequently organised and marched in protests across Cardiff.
“I was in full drag, dressed as Madonna, I remember walking down Queen Street coming around at the top of the street and people were spitting on us,” he explained.
“I got spat on from the top deck of a bus by an old aged couple. We couldn’t believe the hostility, but we were fighting for gay rights.
“It was a bad time, but it was the Press who did that. People believed what they saw in the papers.”
Notably, young gay people began making their way from the Valleys to take refuge in Cardiff’s LGBT+ scene.
Obtaining a bedsit or shared accommodation, Marcia reflected on the numerous times new people were taken under the wings of the community, in gay pubs such as Cardiff’s Kings Cross, regardless of who they were.
“Particularly that happened a lot at the Kings Cross, you would get people that were straight off the bus from the Valleys and it would be their first time in a gay bar,” he said.
“You went over and you asked if they were OK, because all of us had been in those situations in the past. We took hundreds of people under our wing. There are some people who are so successful in their working and personal lives now, I sometimes think ‘If we hadn’t have offered them to come and sit with us, their life would’ve turned out a completely different way.’”
Falling ill, moving to Spain and stopping drag for a few years, Marcia came back to the beginning of a step forward for equality.
“The Pride that I did do when I returned from Spain, I was quite amazed”, Marcia added.
“To go from mini Prides to something so massive, it was a good thing. I’d never seen families sat there, children sat there. I thought ‘ My God, this is a real step forward.’”
Still an active performer and figurehead in Cardiff’s LGBT+ scene, Marcia credits the closeness of the community and a family of fellow drag queens for the continuous love and passion for the art form. As the world faces another pandemic, Covid-19, Marcia urged the community to “dig” their heels in.
“We need to do what we have to do. Be as strong as you can,” he added.
“These are the hardest times we’ve had to deal with. Dig your heels in, do what you have to do to keep safe and eventually things will be back to normal and we will have a social life again. We never thought we would get out of the Aids epidemic, and we did.”