Series 2 of HIV: The Morning After will arrive on 6 February 2026. Guests include activist Dan Glass, author and sex columnist Alexander Cheves and Positively UK Chief Executive Silvia Petretti. Join them and other inspiring guests for a new ten-part series telling the stories of people living with HIV today.

Dan Hall

Email: HIVTheMorningAfter@gmail.com

Marc Thompson was diagnosed with HIV at just 17 in 1986, during the epidemic's most frightening early days when information wasn't reaching young black gay men in South London's vibrant but segregated queer scene. His journey from isolated teenager to influential activist illustrates the power of transforming personal experience into systemic change.

Feeling like the only young black gay man in HIV services, Marc recognised the vital importance of representation and community building, establishing the first support group for positive black gay men at the London Lighthouse.

His activism spans decades, from safer sex workshops in the 1990s through co-founding PrEPster in 2014 to fight for HIV prevention access, and creating Blackout UK to celebrate black queer lives.

Now serving as Lead Commissioner of the London HIV Prevention Programme, Marc has architected change that ensures black queer men are part of funding conversations and policy decisions. His story demonstrates how one person's determination to build the community they desperately needed can reshape an entire field, whilst his commitment to preserving stories through podcasts and archives ensures future generations understand their history and heritage.

03:02 - Teenage life in 1986: "I was out on the scene and discovering myself... just being a curious, fun, engaged teenager."

04:37 - Segregated gay scene: "For many black queer people... those places were not particularly welcoming... because of racist door policies."

06:33 - Societal context: "The UK was deeply racist. The National Front was still marching on the streets."

07:32 - Community assumptions: "One of the rules we had in my community was, well, this is a white man's thing."

08:37 - Information access: "There was no route for that information to get directly to a young man like me."

09:53 - The diagnosis: "I'm told that they have come back positive. And the world stopped."

11:27 - Processing the news: "The only two things that kept reverberating... how am I going to tell my grandfather... I would never have children."

12:36 - Isolation of diagnosis: "I didn't know anyone who had HIV who looked like me."

13:01 - Multiple intersections: "I knew that all of this intersected with my blackness and my queerness."

14:16 - Mother's support: "I was able to tell my mum... she didn't throw me out of the house."

15:50 - Community gossip: "I became known in the small black gay community as Marc with the virus."

17:41 - First activism: "If I can teach these men... maybe they'll be less fearful... maybe there won't be so shit to people like me."

22:26 - First support group: "I'd set up the first black gay men's group... There were only four of us... probably one of the most important days of my life."

25:56 - PrEPster origins: "We set up PrEPster as a website... with the sole intention of providing education to our communities."

27:32 - Golden age of prevention: "The emergence of organisations like Gay Men Fighting AIDS... culturally appropriate, culturally specific information."

33:38 - Community resistance: "Why can't these young gay men just use condoms like we did? Aren't they fucking on the graves of the people that died?"

37:09 - Blackout UK mission: "We wanted to celebrate black queer lives... always coming from a place of love, joy and celebration."

41:06 - HIV equality: "We are all in some ways HIV equal, whether we're negative, positive or untested."

43:01 - Personal responsibility: "I take my medication to keep me alive. The...

Gus Cairns was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 at age 29, having met the love of his life, Paul, who was already positive. An Oxford graduate drifting through London's gay scene, Gus wanted to share Paul's status, believing it meant they could have unprotected sex without consequences. What followed was a devastating education in AIDS as Paul slowly died over four and a half years, succumbing in January 1990 after insisting on showing Princess Diana his Kaposi's sarcoma lesions to reveal "what it was like."

Gus's own journey through near-death experiences, alternative therapies, and the transformative arrival of combination therapy in the mid-1990s illustrates the psychological complexity of surviving when so many friends died. His story captures the "Lazarus effect" - the unexpected challenge of learning to live again after preparing for death - whilst highlighting how trauma can be transformed into purpose.

Now 69 and a respected HIV educator, Gus reflects on 40 years of living with HIV with the wisdom of someone who has witnessed history and emerged determined to teach its lessons, particularly that "you can't moralise your way out of an epidemic."

03:01 - Meeting Paul: "The reaction to Paul was summed up... 'why are you going out with that maniac?'"

06:51 - Sexual history: "If you're shagging around on the gay scene in the early 80s... I was quite good looking and I was horny."

08:40 - Seroconversion symptoms: "A clutch of very severe mouth ulcers... a classic, clear seroconversion symptom of HIV."

09:15 - Wanting to be positive: "I was so besotted by him that I actually wanted to be positive, too."

10:04 - Testing refusal: "They wouldn't give me an HIV test because the Ethics committee had decided it was essentially a death sentence."

12:46 - Princess Diana visit: "He said, I want them to see what it was like."

17:00 - Paul's final days: "He said, I want to go to the loo... That was his last moment of consciousness."

19:42 - Death certificate insistence: "Absolutely insisting that AIDS was recorded on his death certificate."

21:04 - AZT trial experience: "I lasted six weeks and then I said, I'm not taking this anymore."

23:08 - Survival mentality: "I was looking for a kind of survivor's mentality... split myself into two systems of belief."

24:12 - 1995 breakthrough: "Reading the report... seeing the virus load disappear in his subjects."

25:13 - Scientific turning point: "Right, I want these drugs."

26:37 - Survivor's depression: "I didn't realise I was terribly depressed... I didn't know how to cope with surviving."

28:37 - Wartime mentality: "People were dying left, right and centre all around you."

29:47 - Sexual behaviour change: "I'd taken an unconscious decision that I did not want to... inject HIV into somebody else."

32:26 - Current global concerns: "Trump cutting... all the assistance to Africa."

35:04 - War and inhibition: "In wartime people lose their inhibitions."

37:38 - Key lesson: "One of those lessons is that you can't moralise your way out of an epidemic."

41:03 - Remembering Paul: "He taught me the power of defiance and the power of absolutely standing up for yourself."

42:58 - Final wisdom: "Survival is the best revenge... don't let the anger and the stress get to you."

• Other work from Producer Dan Hall.