• 1956: Terry entered Haverfordwest Grammar School. • After leaving school Terry joined the Navy. • After leaving the Navy, Terry went to London to work for Hansard, where he prepared official reports on all the parliamentary debates at Westminster. • He became a popular DJ at Heaven, Britain’s most famous gay nightclub. • 1981: The first cases of AIDS-related illness amongst gay men are reported in the USA. Terry was already ill during this period. • 1982: He collapsed at the Heaven nightclub. • 1982: 4 July – Terry dies. • 1982: Martyn Butler and Rupert Whitaker, Terry Higgins’s partner, start the Terry Higgins Trust, along with his friend, Tony Calvert. • January 1984: The Terrence Higgins Trust earns charity status. • 1987: Princess Diana opens the first specialist AIDS ward at the Middlesex Hospital in England. • 2010: The Terrence Higgins Trust collaborates with the Elton John AIDS Foundation to launch LifePlus, which helps people living with HIV.
‘Higgins was the first named person in the UK to die of an Aids-related illness, on 4 July 1982. By naming it after a person, the founders of THT hoped to humanise the deadly epidemic.’ – Simon Hattenstone, ‘”He taught me about love, affection and great sex”: the untold story of Terrence Higgins’, The Guardian, 23 June 2022 – https://www.theguardian.com/