Gripping series celebrates the unsung heroes and untold stories of Britain’s HIV epidemic

.pn-single-post-wrapper__content-main a { background: linear-gradient(to right, rgba(239,117,172,0.4) 0, rgba(239,117,172,0.4) 100%); background-position: 0 -0.1em; background-size: 0 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; }

As one of Britain’s most prominent HIV activists, Marc Thompson is used to sharing his life story.

Having lived with HIV since 1986, he’s been on the frontlines of social justice activism and education for the decades that have come since. As a result, he’s regularly called upon to speak for history projects, with newspapers and broadcasters, and at events.

Around two years ago, Thompson found himself “struck by the continued whiteness and maleness of these events and the narrative”, he tells PinkNews.

“And it really frustrated me, because I knew that there were lots more stories to be told. There are lots of people who are absent: people of colour, women, people who openly were sex workers. There were people who weren’t living with HIV, but were affected or had been volunteers or clinicians, whose stories were not being captured.”

These vital stories were missing from the modern narrative of the HIV epidemic – partly because, as was the case with last year’s It’s a Sin, those given the platforms to tell such stories are largely white, cis, gay men speaking from their own experience. So, as is his nature, Thompson decided to do something about it.

The outcome is We Were Always Here: an ambitious podcast series for which Thompson and Broccoli Productions collected more than 70 hours of interviews, with more than 50 individuals “who lived through one of the most significant periods in British and global history”.

NEW SERIES