Party Victoria Avenue 1982 (ish)
A Dyke History Trilogy: part two
‘Are you gay?’ Asked the woman with dangly earrings
And chocolate button eyes.
I was about to deny it.
‘Of course she is, or she wouldn’t be here!’
Said the boyish woman.
I’d never seen a woman in Doc Martin’s before.
Her words changed my whole world forever.
Lel Meleyal, Scarborough
The Party: Victoria Avenue, Hull. 1982 (ish).
A Dyke History Trilogy: part one
Party Victoria Avenue. 1982 (ish)
Everyone was singing along to Hi Ho Silver Lining.
The DJ had turned off the music when the chorus came on.
The copper came into the room, tried to make himself heard above the noise.
‘Too loud’ he tried to shout but we sang louder.
Saw a room full of women, knew he was out of his depth.
He scuttled away.
Lel Meleyal, Scarborough
Birthday parties
Leaving Parties
Summer Parties
Christmas parties
Funeral parties
Care home parties
You shouldn’t be crying parties
Because your parent is dying parties
No formal education for a year parties
Give our friends some beer parties
No more because you’re queer parties
Or see your granny shed a tear parties
Because you can’t be here parties
We just don’t fucking care parties
Kerry Mitchell, Brighton
Party
That party where we met for the second time.
You were by the fish tank at Bens.
You wanted me to kiss you… but I did not know that.
We would have had two more whole months together.
Kiss the girl
Su Middleton-Lee
Brighton
Touch typing for activists
*Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the Party*
Dress in your best, Bring a bottle. Bring hummous.
Bring a banner and a guitar. Bring a will of iron and a cheerful determination not to be overcome.
Bring a hardhat and a stabvest, times are hard. Bring a mask.
Bring a drum, spare sticks and gaffer tape for your fingers. Bring your friends. Hug them, for life is short. Cherish them. Bring the number of a pro bono solicitor.
Stand 6 feet apart. You will need more than one signaller and the basses will get out of time with the snares; but persist. Resist. Continue to exist.
Play on, play loud, but refuse to play the game. Remember Greenham. Remember the clause 28 march at Manchester. Remember when we took to the streets to protest and to party. Remember doing the Guardian crossword while blockading the streets?… with jugglers?…on stilts?
Dance- like it was breathing. Sing – like it was loving. Hold on to the Joy of dressing up and getting out there and flinging yourself into sweaty togetherness – friendship, politics, lust and life, beautiful exuberant mad life, all mixed up with a cherry on top.
Try not to be downheartened when onlookers say “They should just get a bloody job” Try not to feel smug that when the world ends in deeply polarised, abject poverty, forest fire, flood and screaming, then they’ll be sorry. Try not to say “I can’t believe Im still protesting this shit at 70”
Try to find a way in which making animations of ballroom dancing sheds and flying cactus can somehow…come to the aid of the Party?
Amazingly few campaigns feature dancing garden buildings.
*Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes*
*The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog*
The quick green protester jumps over the lazy Tory.
And now is the time for all good persons to come to the aid of the Party
Fin McMorran (age 65 and 3 quarters) Eighton Banks, Tyneside
How Julie Andrews might have responded to news of the end of lockdown
Bookshops and tea shops and days out with besties
Hugging with parents and no fear of nasties
Bright days of sunshine with no daily tolls
These are the days I want the most of all
Chip shops and seaside and drives out with no fines
Old country gardens not straddling tier lines
Life’s simple pleasures like they used to be
These are the thoughts that now fill me with glee
When my date comes
When the jab works
When I’m feeling sad.
I simply remember the pre-covid times
And then I don’t feel, so sad.
Lel Meleyal With humble and respectful apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Ageing in 2020 – An Unexpected Year
12/11/2020
HIV activist Susan Paxton, PhD, reflects on the year.
Ageing in 2020 – An Unexpected Year
Back in 1999, I was looking death in the face. I didn’t think I would see my son finish primary school, let alone be around for over 20 more years. I had gone through the ‘normal’ trajectory of a person who had lived with HIV for ten years: my CD-4 T-cell count was down to 50 cells per cubic mm and my viral load was over 4 million particles per ml. That was the year I started taking anti-retroviral medication, began to return to ridiculously good health, and survived the HIV pandemic that had killed so many people I loved.
Soon afterwards, I ran in the Sydney Olympic Torch Relay, went public in the media and completed a PhD. I began to work extensively in Asia and the Pacific as a public health consultant to governments and NGOs, United Nations agencies, and networks of people living with HIV. I conducted peer-based research into discrimination against people living with HIV and assessed HIV programs in many countries. I also conducted training in human rights, public speaking and facilitation skills. This was an exhilarating time in my life. Once again, I was part of the changes I wanted to see happen in our region. After years of depleted health, I was productive, energetic and able to relish life more fully than I had been able to for so very long.
A few years ago, I retired from formal employment, my son left to work in London, and I anticipated the next years filled with painting and travelling to visit the friends I have made around the world. And then 2020 hit us.
How many of us living with HIV ever imagined that our entry into the second decade of the second millennium could be so dramatic? In February, my son arrived in Melbourne to visit me (how lucky was I?) and on the drive from the airport he was shocked to see the reddish-brown smoke that lingered in the air after the bushfires that marked our apocalyptical entry into 2020. Covid-19 was just making news and I realised it would impact my life and the lives of millions of people around the world. I told my son I would need to hibernate for the winter and I began to stock up my cupboards with protein-filled goods such as baked beans and tuna.
Although I knew, intellectually, that a global pandemic was about to be unleashed, and I had to protect myself, I had no idea of the emotional impact it would wreak not just on me, but on so many people around me and so quickly.
During this year, I have journeyed through the five stages of grief many times (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). Sometimes I have done this over a period of days, and sometimes I have whipped through them in a few hours. Perhaps having lived with HIV for 30 years prepared me with the resilience I needed for this year. Within 20 years, I lost more than 100 friends and colleagues from HIV-related illness. I never imagined I would live through another pandemic, just as indiscriminate as HIV, but this time one that most of us has had to go through alone, without the contact of friends or family. I was disheartened but not surprised when I saw on the news in April, a shot of a garage door in western Melbourne on which somebody had spray-painted “Die Chinese Covid-19”. Immediately I recalled a terrible day in the 90s when my late friend Sonja found scrawled on her fence “Die AIDS Bitch”. Stigmatisation happens by frightened people.
Throughout the HIV pandemic, we have been there for each other, able to hold and comfort each other, but with COVID, those of us who live alone have no ability to hold a loved one in our arms. I did not see or hug my niece and her two daughters for nine months and I found that very difficult.
When the pandemic first started, like many people, I was virtually immobilised. I had many things I could have done – reading, writing, painting – but I had no motivation. The enormity of what was happening was too much for me. Emotions became unpredictable. Two wonderful women I knew died early in the pandemic, both amazons … Dr Gita Ramjee, a South African academic who for decades did great work in HIV prevention among women, and Dolores Dockery who had lived with HIV since ’94, ran the Hyacinth Group in NYC, and had visited Melbourne during the AIDS2014 Conference.
I adopted a two-year-old stray cat (from the Lost Dogs’ Home, where else), and she has been a lifesaver. She is a short-haired, grey tabby, now named Venus – my shining star. She curls up next to me each night and her beating heart and deep purring console me.
I did eventually get motivated, and managed to get into some crafting and painting. In June, I had planned to take my grandniece to Fiji, but that quickly had to be postponed for at least 12 months. So, I decided to bring the tropics to me and painted a mural outside my bathroom window. I also ran a couple of Zoom workshops for women living with HIV, which was great to enable us to feel more connected during these strange times. I had hoped to see my son again within the next year, but this will become the longest time I have ever been away from him. As 2020 progressed, I became more at peace with how radically life has changed, albeit with occasional moments of overwhelming sadness about what has happened in the world.
A decade ago in 2010, I travelled to 15 different countries in a single year, most for work. I am trying to accept the sad thought that if a successful vaccine does not eventuate, I may not be able to travel again to England, my birth country and where I still have three dear cousins and a handful of lifelong friends.
It’s not easy for any of us, but maybe because I have been through such challenging times in the past, I can cope more easily. I cry and I am robust. We can be both. I am a sociable person and at the same time, I have realised the inner strength to ride this one. I have allowed myself to play … spending 24 hours making a two-roomed box cat house for Venus, and decorating it inside and out. I have smashed crockery to make a mosaic and I have woven and felted a massive COVID particle. During my life, I have been unlawful at times, for reasons of politics or pleasure. This spring my unlawfulness amounted to standing in the middle of my road at 4am, unmasked, looking at the moon and listening to the dawn calls of blackbirds.
Having spent most of this year in one of the longest and toughest lockdowns in the world, I have reflected on how grateful I am for so many things in my life. I feel so lucky that my parents emigrated to Australia when I was a child. I am lucky to have safe, warm, secure housing and I don’t live hand to mouth. I have sufficient income to cover my needs and my modest desires, and my health is good and enables me to live independently.
Despite this horrible year, I have now lived long enough to know that everything changes and nothing stays the same forever. I have no idea how I will feel next time I am in the company of dozens of people. Many of us need easing back in. Congratulations to all of us who continue to contribute to arresting this virus. We are not going to get to a new normal for a while, but hopefully we will emerge with greater resilience.
Covid Come, Covid Go
Covid come and Covid go
Covid deal it’s mighty blow
Covid sleek and Covid slick
Covid slow and Covid quick
Covid n-n-n-nineteen
Covid not quite what it seem
A mild illness, I’m fighting fit
A cold, a flu, I’ll deal with it
But Covid get me in it’s grip
Covid take me on it’s trip
Not the shiny kind I know
Covid never let me go
Covid here, here to stay
Covid take my breath away
All through spring, crippling fatigue
Covid! Covid! I can’t breathe!
Fog descend, fill up my head
Can barely, still, get out of bed
We lie, together, all through summer
Covid, Covid, what a bummer
Friends have had it, Mums have died
I’m thankful that I’m still alive
Still, it beats it’s dreadful drum
Covid – when will you be done?
Earworm driving me insane
Covid not a friendly game
Covid short and Covid long
Release me from this savage song
Covid here, Covid gone
Finally, it’s on the run
December come, Christmas cheer
Covid’s knocked me down all year
Covid comes, Covid goes
Lockdown’s back with painted toes
Never mind, I feel well
At last, I’m free of Covid hell
January, a fresh new start
Happy health lift up my heart
Energy begin to rise
Immunity, for 2 nd Prize!
But wait! I need a Covid test
Stand in line with all the rest
Results back, too much at stake,
Covid! Again! For fuck, fucks’ sake!
Covid cough, Covid fever
Covid I don’t fucking need ya
Covid fever, Covid cough
C’mon Covid, I’ve had enough!
But second time, not as shit
Like a bad flu, I deal with it
Covid come and Covid go
Covid deal it’s mighty blow
Covid gone, Covid been
Worst havoc I’ve ever seen
Covid, this time you’re too slow –
Fuck of Covid. Off you go……
Karen, aged 51, Brighton
Death came to many of us last year
Death comes to many of us
everyday and everywhere
Death is a constant
Death is a must
Once one has gifted life
L Devo Child, (age 50’ish) Bristol
One year, we went to theatre.
Another, a Gin Palace in soho.
This year for our anniversary we put out the bins.
It’s one of the few trips you can still take, since they took away shopping together in Sainsburys.
The bins.
They might not seem like the best allegory for a relationship.
Leftovers.
Unwanted remnants.
Actually, it wasn’t that at all.
The bins contained the reminders and the remains of last night – a leftover crust of Beef Wellington, a wine stained cork (or three), the rind of the lime from the cocktails, an empty envelope from a card expressing affection and dedication, and the crinkly cellophane from the roses.
And crammed at the bottom of the bag –
the receipt.
You don’t need a receipt if don’t plan on giving back what you’d purchased.
If you plan to keep it for ever.
For longer than lockdown.
And as we clasped hands walking back from the bins, the sun caught a glimpse of the diamond on her third finger of her left hand.
Locked down for life.
The best kind of lock down.
Serena Roxy Gilbert (age 43 ) Kent
The Limitations of Zoom
We are not bone. We are not flesh.
We show an unembodied face,
display a dislocated base;
minds tangle as we breach the miles,
the shy rapport of distant smiles,
to guess what more-than words express
across the bridge of consciousness,
and try to read the signs.
Yes I am here, yet I exist
alone within my separate frame:
and you apart in yours.
Can tendrils reach across this space,
transmit the warmth of fond embrace,
the subtle brush of gentle lips,
linguistic play of fingertips
as your hand touches mine?
Based on only what is seen,
can eyes still speak between the screens?
Can we still reach the tender place
that lies beneath the carapace?
How can we connect without
collisions of the tangible,
the sweet kiss of the visceral,
without corpor-reality?
Those who crave the mortal spark,
who hunger for the human balm,
the comfort of the calming arm,
stare out with famished hearts.
How can we replace the grace
that feeds between the lines?
Find ways to share our sympathies
in these unfeeling times?
Georgina Koubel (age 68) Walmer, near Deal
Gay Men Are Dads (Even when covid is around)
12 months since I joined an online network of gay dads.
Adoption, surrogacy, shared care and other.
The driving force behind all of them was a domesticity that society left floating around for so long like the 1950s housewife.
These men exude love, caring, loving smiles, domestic ups and downs, nappy talk, sleepless nights, home schooling, and the tribulations like I have only experienced gaggles of mums doing on the playground.
However these men take nothing for granted in their crusade to be fathers. Mother Nature didn’t select us to be straight, get hitched and reproduce.
Through lock downs and waves of covid shared all their amazing support for each other and all the diverse things they were doing with their babies, toddlers, small people and teenagers.
These men, of a similar age, grew up without the ability to form their relationships into marriage, naturally conceive, access the world without prejudice and couldn’t even adopt.
The options were not there for us. We were without a womb so that was a non self starter. However I can only describe all of these dads exuding as maternal…not paternal qualities.
I chose my label for my relationship with my own son as a maternal father. Saying anything else just isn’t fitting because I wish I could have carried him. So right back at your Mother Nature! …I take back the mother label. The housewife is still very much alive. In me, as a man!
We are well on our way to fulfilling our dreams as men but many with the mother in us all.
Adam Lott 41 from Kent.
Father of three.
FebulousFebruary 2026: The Old Photograph 