Me and a friend from London at Brighton & Hove Pride in Preston Park around the early noughties. I recall the weather being intermittently sunny and wet and being completely covered in mud by the end of the day!

Me at Preston Park in the late 90s, wearing a gold rubber Elvis wig, Hawaiian style shirt featuring images of Presley, bondage trousers by DSquared and carrying a bottle of vodka alcopop, the most popular club drink of the period. From memory the event was still unfenced and free.

Me in VIP area at Pride wearing a shirt with RAF motif by Red or Dead, bought for Popstarz club night, years before, and still a favourite a decade later. Note the painted on ‘Betty Boop’ hair, which I recall left a rather embarrassing tan shape on my head owing to the strong sunshine that day! Second photo includes a few friends.

I met Stephen in a Kemp Town gym, and we became better acquainted in the jacuzzi. His partner was Omar, known to his friends as O. They became good friends of mine, and their large flat on Preston Park was always open to me and other friends. They both had a good eye for interior design and enjoyed a comfortable life. Stephen and I used to go swimming regularly at the Eastbourne leisure centre, stopping off at my house near Lewes on the way back. Somehow, I lost track of Stephen and O for a couple of years, but we reforged our friendships, stronger than ever, after we all were living with HIV. They separated at the start of the 1990’s, and Stephen died from Pneumocystis Pneumonia (PCP) in Ward 6 of Hove General Hospital in 1994.