Paul Tay
- Title
- Paul Tay
- Date
- 1992
- Format
- jpeg
- Creator
- Scene Magazine
- Spatial Coverage
- Brighton
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Attribution - Non Commercial - ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Description:
Paul Tay
19 June 1959 - 20 May 1992
Paul was born in Hammersmith to a mother from London and a father from Ghana. I first encountered him at the University of Leicester in 1979, where we both studied. I don't recall us ever speaking, but our eyes would frequently meet as we passed each other on our bicycles. In London three years later, I spotted a very beautiful black man across the circular bar of Harpoon Louie’s in Earls Court. I plucked up the courage to ask him if he was that person from university and we became inseparable. Paul was funny and charming, with an infectious laugh; his model good looks were eclipsed by his kind and wonderful soul. His passion was driving and cars, especially vintage ones, so our weekends were spent exploring London gay bars, in his old Saab or my 1967 Triumph Vitesse. We would also spend time at the flat in Kingston-upon-Thames where he lived with his lone parent mother, the wonderful Betty. She once said we ‘might as well be engaged to be married’ considering the amount of time we spent together. To hear these words of support for our sexuality in the early 1980’ s was both unimaginable and magnificent. In 1991 Paul rang after a couple of weeks of not returning my calls; something which had never happened in our ten years together. He said, ‘you will never guess what I've got,’ and told me he had AIDS. For the next ten months I’d drive from Brighton to visit Paul at his mother’s flat and later the Broderip Ward at the Middlesex Hospital – London’s first dedicated HIV ward, opened by Princess Diana. Paul made it clear that he did not wish to discuss his illness and I respected that. One day, I asked him how he was doing, and he replied, ‘why do you ask?’ My reply ‘Well, you’re not looking your best’ made him smile. That’ s how we dealt with it, we didn't talk about it between us, and I never told any of my friends - a sign of the times. I struggle to have any pictures in my head of Paul, other than of him being happy and healthy, always so beautiful with an infectious laugh and a wonderful, beautiful soul. If he knew there was a four-metre-high great lump of bronze in Brighton named after him, he would chuckle. Words by Romany Mark Bruce
19 June 1959 - 20 May 1992
Paul was born in Hammersmith to a mother from London and a father from Ghana. I first encountered him at the University of Leicester in 1979, where we both studied. I don't recall us ever speaking, but our eyes would frequently meet as we passed each other on our bicycles. In London three years later, I spotted a very beautiful black man across the circular bar of Harpoon Louie’s in Earls Court. I plucked up the courage to ask him if he was that person from university and we became inseparable. Paul was funny and charming, with an infectious laugh; his model good looks were eclipsed by his kind and wonderful soul. His passion was driving and cars, especially vintage ones, so our weekends were spent exploring London gay bars, in his old Saab or my 1967 Triumph Vitesse. We would also spend time at the flat in Kingston-upon-Thames where he lived with his lone parent mother, the wonderful Betty. She once said we ‘might as well be engaged to be married’ considering the amount of time we spent together. To hear these words of support for our sexuality in the early 1980’ s was both unimaginable and magnificent. In 1991 Paul rang after a couple of weeks of not returning my calls; something which had never happened in our ten years together. He said, ‘you will never guess what I've got,’ and told me he had AIDS. For the next ten months I’d drive from Brighton to visit Paul at his mother’s flat and later the Broderip Ward at the Middlesex Hospital – London’s first dedicated HIV ward, opened by Princess Diana. Paul made it clear that he did not wish to discuss his illness and I respected that. One day, I asked him how he was doing, and he replied, ‘why do you ask?’ My reply ‘Well, you’re not looking your best’ made him smile. That’ s how we dealt with it, we didn't talk about it between us, and I never told any of my friends - a sign of the times. I struggle to have any pictures in my head of Paul, other than of him being happy and healthy, always so beautiful with an infectious laugh and a wonderful, beautiful soul. If he knew there was a four-metre-high great lump of bronze in Brighton named after him, he would chuckle. Words by Romany Mark Bruce
Paul Tay
