Description:
Eddie and I met at Earls Court’s Club Copacabana on Tuesday 6 September 1983, when I accidentally tripped him up and spilt his drink. Mortified I bought him another one and we got chatting. I was a spikey haired post-punk/goth 18-year-old, and Eddie a stereotypical 1980’s clone. He invited me back to his flat in Chiswick and I stayed for 5 days, missing college. I told my parents I was staying with friends.
Within a few months I left college and moved in. It was a gradual process, but Eddie knew I was serious when my record collection arrived. Eddie was born and brought up in Glasgow on the infamous Easterhouse estate. He was a proud working-class man and HGV driver who drove Adam & Ants and Jordan around Italy on their 1978 tour.
Eddie tried in vain to turn me into a clone, by taking me to all the bars and leather clubs in London. It was around this time that we read about a disease largely affecting gay men in the States called GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), later known as AIDS. It became all the talk in the gay press and bars. We volunteered to take part in early research conducted at Hammersmith Hospital and regularly had our bloods tested.
We were together for 2 years, and remained close friends after we broke up. A few months later Eddie tested positive, and he joined the organisation Body Positive through which he found purpose, support and friendship. Pretty soon, he was the centre’s caretaker, one of the unseen heroes doing the unglamourous but much needed jobs. When Eddie became unwell, he decided not to go to the London Lighthouse, which was nearer to his home. Instead, he chose the Mildmay Mission in East London, because as a proud working-class man he felt more comfortable there.
After Eddie died, I wanted to make a quilt panel for him, so I joined a quilt making workshop in Brighton run by Arthur Law. The panel I made for Eddie shows all the simple pleasures which made him happy. A mug of coffee, some hobnobs, a cigarette and the Evening Standard crossword. After completing the quilt panel, his death still felt too raw for me to show the piece in the 1993 Brighton Remembers, so I kept it at home, until now.
Eddie
Eddie
Eddie
Eddie
Eddie
