AIDS: 'It crept in sideways silently as rumours and whispers' - a podcast by BBC Radio 4

Forty years ago the news came of the first reported AIDS case in the UK. Very few people had heard of the virus or had any sense of how dangerous it would become. Wild rumours spread about the new disease which caused the deaths of so many people in the UK and hit the gay community in particular very badly.

That era was described in Simon Garfield's book, The End of Innocence: Britain in the Time of AIDS, which has now been republished with a foreword by Russell T Davies. His recent drama, It's A Sin, vividly brought that period to light.

Today's Martha Kearney speaks to Simon Garfield and Russell T Davies about what it was like at the time.

(Image credit: Ministry of Health and Social Security / COI)

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