I first met Gary sometime in the mid 80’s. I’m not sure where but I think it was to do with Body Positive business. He and his partner Sebastian were also engaged with The London Lighthouse in some capacity. Sebastian was very handsome and a few years younger than Gary. One afternoon I met them outside the Ladbrook Grove tube station with Rusty their new little Jack Russell cross who was gorgeous. They asked me to hold him whilst they went to use a loo and when they came out, we had a coffee somewhere nearby. They told me that Sebastian was moving to Brighton, with Gary following as soon as he could. I met them both again in Woolworths on Oxford St the day before Sebastian was moving, but I never saw Sebastian again because he died before I moved to Brighton. Gary was not a run of the mill chauffeur. He worked as one of the top drivers for the most important chauffeur service in London Victoria. He drove everyone - heads of state, celebrated film stars, rock musicians and many other world-famous people who specifically asked for him time and time again. I think he must have had some kind of intelligence background due to the importance of the people he drove, but I can’t say for certain. He was also a great dancer and lovely human being. Gary and Sebastian bought a house in Kemp Street a few doors up from the artist Gary Sollars. They were both members of the newly formed LGBT Line Dance group which I also joined later. We became a very close-knit group of friends and danced our hearts out for a couple of years. Sadly, Gary went from HIV status to full blown AIDS so I started visiting almost every day to take Rusty out for a walk. When I came into the living room Rusty would jump all over me and I’d kiss and cuddle him for a few minutes before going over to kiss and hug Gary. We walked all over Brighton, and when Gary went into The Sussex Beacon, Rusty came to live with me. We were told that Gary only had a few weeks to live and wanted to return home to die. We all helped, taking turns to look after Gary and do all the cooking, shopping and cleaning. The whole house became alive with fabulous energy. We laughed, cried, ate together, slept overnight and read to Gary until the final week when he slipped in and out of consciousness. Gary told us he didn’t want his sister to have anything to do with his death or its aftermath, and he left a letter at the Sussex Beacon saying they were not to inform her. Unfortunately, the letter was not read until it was too late. She arrived the day before he died and was furious that we were all having such a wonderful time making Gary’s last days positive and bearable. Gary had one of the best deaths I have ever witnessed until she poked her nose in. We would not let her interfere, but she wouldn’t leave Gary’s house until after the funeral. There was one problem, Rusty. I said I could not take him so said she’d build another kennel outside for him next to her other dogs. This horrified me and all the others, so I quickly changed my mind and took Rusty home with me that evening. He lived for another 4 happy years, and I still have an oil painting of him above my desk.

Philip’s panel was part of the AIDS Memorial Quilt display in Washington in October 1992, and I went with mum and the UK gang for a week. His panel came up on CNN news later that day picked out from thousands. Philip was from Bootle in Liverpool, and we started going out when I was 17 and he was 21. He was insulting, cheeky and funny, blind in one eye, five foot one with size 3 feet, but his mouth made up for his stature. I am always intrigued by people who take the mick out of me so I was hooked. We moved to London in 1978, and he worked at the post office on the King’s Road. He was diagnosed HIV+ in 1985 and with full blown AIDS in 1987. Australia was our last chance of a holiday together as he was beginning to get weaker. He loved music, especially Philadelphia soul and Helen Reddy. He loved laughing and would tell people their friends had died for a laugh - weeks later they'd bump into them on the tube...ha, he was a monkey. Him and my family got on great and he was my first proper bloke to go out with. We had a beautiful Dr in Hackney called Dr Feder. He tried all kinds to help at a time when hospital staff treated us like the plague. I used to tell people he had cancer when they asked, because it seemed mild in comparison. It all seems another life away, but it's always just under the surface because it was a massive thing for us to go through. I was 24 when he was diagnosed and it took me about five years after Philip died to feel something like me again, but I'm sure he’s fine now in Oz. He's had a quilt panel, a painting and Australia - that's your bloody lot...ha xxx Words by Gary Sollars 'My partner Philip Munro. Died 13.1.89. Aged 34' a painting by Gary Sollars On a hospital bed bathed in an ethereal light lies a man who has just died. Weeping by his side are two women. Another man is kneeling with his arms stretched across the mattress. Two more men, their bodies naked stride away. From the hand of one of them flutters a red ribbon, the symbol of AIDS awareness. The painting earned Gary Sollars the overall prize for outstanding work at the Sussex Open art competition of 1996. It’s a deeply personal work which Gary saw as a final stage to the sorrow he experienced after losing Philip to AIDS after 13 years together. “The bed scene kept coming up in my head,” he said. “I wanted to do something about being gay, and the obvious subject was the loss.” The first stage of Gary’s grieving process was to scatter Philip’s ashes over Ayers Rock in Australia. “We went on holiday to Sydney in 1987, and coming back we had to choose between seeing Disneyland or Ayers Rock. We went to Disneyland - I wanted Philip to have had the experience of being in both places.” Gary went on to make a panel for the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt which depicts Ayers Rock with footsteps leading the way. It was exhibited alongside other local panels during Brighton Lesbian & Gay Pride in 1992. “You don’t realise it, but the bereavement process takes a long time. You’re think you’re OK for a while, and then something triggers it off again.”