Centre of the Storm

Let me go back to the beginning. I spent about 20 years as a journalist and documentary maker, mainly at the ABC. In 1987-881 made a series of short films for the ABC which went under the title of "celebrations"; one of those was on the 1988 Mardi Gras. We followed three or four people through their experience of the whole Mardi Gras—one of whom was Dr Ralph Deacon, an AIDS doctor with AIDS who died about 18 months ago. After over 20 years of making pretty little films about things that didn't really concern me or the people I was to some degree expert in, it was a very great release. About a year after that, in early 1989,1 left the ABC to become ed ito r of the gay com m unity newspaper the Sydney Star Observer; it was then I found out I was HIV posi­ tive myself. From then on of course I have been writing about AIDSPand have been fairly heavily involved in the gay and AIDS communities.