Ballad of the Lights

Today is World AIDS Day so Spokes and I went along to St George's Hall for the annual vigil and event organised by our local HIV/AIDS support and information service, Sahir House - a fantastic organisation whose youngest service user this year was 7 months old and whose oldest was 70 years old.

Whilst HIV positive people in the UK can now increasingly expect, thanks to medication, to live to a ripe old age and die of the same range of causes that can strike any of us down, there was also a reminder that none of us should be complacent and that the situation elsewhere in the world is very different. In Malawi, for example, over 14% of the adult population is HIV+ and life expectancy is not good...

The event was really well attended and very moving. It included speeches, songs, poetry and the candlelit reading of the names of local people who are no longer with us.

One (non-local!) person lost to AIDS back in 1992 at the age of 40 was one of Spokes' favourite musicians, Arthur Russell. So this one's for her.