Many people today would have considered Covid-19 the first pandemic they have lived through, ignorant to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic which began in 1981 and which has killed six times as many people across the world and has even more living with the disease. The reality of why this might be is laid bare in Bren Gosling’s award-winning play Moment of Grace. The shame and denial which existed in the late 80’s at the time this piece is set still remains in many parts of our society today, more than 40 years after the first case was diagnosed.
At the time the disease seemed to be reserved for those who society cared less for, and so governments around the world turned their back on their own people in their time of need, a simple case of ‘if it doesn’t affect me and the people around me, and doesn’t come to my door, I don’t care’. Fortunately they couldn’t do the same in 2020 when Covid-19 appeared on their shores and threatened to destroy their economies, populations and even risked the lives of a number of world leaders and their families, some who sadly, despite their status, succumbed to the virus.
It’s important to remember this, what we have all been through, and the humility in people which can often appear when death comes knocking at their door, but its more important to remember those who didn’t need death to be knocking at their door in order to want step forward and help others. Gosling’s gritty three hander recounts Princess Diana’s visit to Britain’s first specialist HIV/AIDS Unit at London’s Middlesex Hospital in 1987, and her famous handshake with an AIDS patient whilst not wearing gloves. It is widely accepted that this single act changed the face of AIDS across the world, challenging the common held misconception that HIV/AIDS was passed from person to person through touch. Diana’s use of her fame and status to perform this single selfless act on that day demonstrated that this terrible disease and growing pandemic needed compassion and understanding, not ignorance and fear.