In the final episode of A Positive Life, Sam Smith explores the experiences of young people in the UK who were born with HIV, and looks at what's next in the ongoing fight to end the HIV epidemic. When we think about people who have lived with HIV for a long time, we often think about older people who lived through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 90s. People who remember the days before effective HIV treatments were discovered, and how the world changed when they finally arrived in 1996. But there's a whole generation of young people in the UK who have had HIV from birth. Many of them have li ..read more

Sam Smith explores the ways HIV affects women and child-bearing parents, and the ongoing fight to end gender inequality and stigma within the fight for greater AIDS awareness. By the late 1990s, new, effective treatments had dramatically changed the implications of a positive HIV diagnosis. But that remarkable news was still taking time to filter through - both to the general public and even to some healthcare professionals - and people with HIV were still regularly subject to misinformation and stigma. Susan Cole was a mother of two when she received the news she was HIV positive almost by ac ..read more

Sam Smith explores how the 1990s brought new, effective treatments for HIV that changed people's lives forever - and hears how peer support networks were a lifeline for women living with HIV in the era before these life saving treatments became available. When Angelina Namiba was diagnosed with HIV in the early 1990s, she didn't know any other women with the virus. In this episode, she tells the story of how she broke through her isolation and fear to become one of the UK's most prominent advocates for women with HIV - supporting and amplifying their stories and experiences with the charities ..read more

Sam Smith explores how more than a thousand haemophiliacs in the UK acquired HIV through their treatment - in what's come to be known as the contaminated blood scandal. At the same time that the queer community was fighting the devastation and stigma of HIV in the 1980s, another community was also being profoundly affected by the AIDS crisis. Through the 1970s and 80s, around a quarter of all haemophiliacs in the UK - more than 1200 people - acquired HIV through blood products given to them as treatment for their condition. Today, fewer than 250 of those people are still alive. Mark Ward was j ..read more

Sam Smith explores how AIDS became headline news in the 1980s, and how communities came together to raise public awareness - and fight a growing tide of fear and stigma. Terry Higgins' death in 1982 was one of the first in the UK from an AIDS-related illness. In the years that followed, a steady drip of information - as well as misinformation - slowly spread about HIV. Much of the early, pioneering work around HIV was done by volunteer organisations from within the queer community, like the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard and the Terrence Higgins Trust - while many of their members simultan ..read more

Sam Smith explores Terry Higgins' life in 1970s and 80s London. His closest friends remember his unforgettable character, and a community on the edge of the AIDS crisis. Like many queer people of his generation, Terry Higgins moved from his small hometown to a big city. In London, Terry found a thriving gay nightlife scene, a supportive community of friends, and a place he could be free. But in 1982, rumours of a "gay cancer" started to emerge from the USA. And Terry suddenly fell ill. Sam Smith learns from some of Terry's closest friends and loved ones about his remarkable character and appro ..read more

Terrence Higgins was one of the first people in the UK to die of an AIDS-related illness. But Terry also lived. Sam Smith explores his early life as a young gay man in Wales. In "A Positive Life", singer Sam Smith presents stories of HIV in the UK over the last forty years. They hear from people who remember the earliest years of the AIDS crisis; the grassroots activists and marginalised communities who came together to fight stigma and raise public awareness; and a new generation living with effective treatments for HIV in a radically-changed world. Sam begins our series with the story of som ..read more

Sam Smith presents stories of HIV in the UK over the last 40 years; beginning with the life of Terrence Higgins, one of the first British people to die of an AIDS-related illness ..read more