6: Pete Price talks It's a Sin
Merseyside broadcaster Pete Price gives us his thoughts on Channel 4's smash hit show, It's a Sin.
Pete Price was one of those who vividly recalls living through the AIDS/HIV pandemic in Liverpool and the overwhelming sense of fear that the gay community felt.
“One of the reasons people were treated like outcasts was because the Press went absolutely mad over it, they called it the gay plague, and we honestly lived in fear of going out of the door, it felt that bad,” he says.
“I’d fought all my life because I was seen as a criminal, it was against the law to be gay, and we’d just started to be accepted and then it went back to square one. It was terrible. And the queer bashers as they were called, came out in force because this gave them the ammunition.”
Pete says there is one particular incident from the time which he’ll never forget.
“I did an interview at Radio City with a guy who was living with AIDS and I wouldn’t shake his hand, that’s how frightened we all were. Afterwards I tracked him down again and went to meet him and threw my arms around him. I apologised because I was so ashamed.”