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Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to come along This lunch time I'm Michael Bancroft and I'm the chairperson, guardian of the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt. And, uh, today has been a very significant day for us. The AIDS Memorial Quilt two of which we have here on the marae stage, Um, have been formally handed over to [00:00:30] Papa this morning. Uh, there are actually 16 of these big blocks that, um, hold about 100 and 40 names of New Zealand, mainly men, but a few women and a couple of young people, um, who have succumbed to HIV and AIDS related causes during the last 24 years since the very first known case of an HIV related death occurred in New Zealand. [00:01:00] Uh, and we say no because, um, a lot of people didn't realise what HIV was in the mid 19 eighties. And, uh, people could have died prior to that without us realising but up here on the quilts. And I'll invite you at some point to go and have a look at them if you haven't had a chance already. There is one up there for Peter cut and it's got 1988 on it. And that was the very first one [00:01:30] that was made here in New Zealand. And, um, over here we have one, for Robin. Uh, that was made in the early nineties, and we're very grateful and fortunate to have his sister Nicky and niece Megan with us today. Uh, and, uh, Robin is actually going to share with you in a few minutes. Just a little something about her brother to make that quilt come to life. Um, but the the [00:02:00] AIDS quilts developed, uh, for those who you're not familiar with it. In about 1987. Some people in San Francisco which was being absolutely devastated by these this new a disease that was creeping through the mainly the gay community and they didn't know, really know what was going on. And then what happened was that people having recognised that said, Let's do something about remembering. [00:02:30] And I can't remember exactly what it was, how that triggered it. But they met together and decided to create a memorial panel. And again, I don't know the psychology of it, but they chose to make them as 6 ft by 3 ft. Now, here in New Zealand, we don't make our graves 6 ft by three. But American people do. [00:03:00] They tend to have a rectangular casket, so that was the basis on which they decided to make them look like graves. And so, in a particular way, these quilts become like a headstone, really, and individuals remembering a particular person in their lives. It might have been, as in the case of Robin, a brother and an uncle. There have been lovers [00:03:30] and partners, family members, friends and in some cases, people never knew. People at all just want to, uh, create a quilt, and we haven't got this one here today. But there is one quilt which has two sunflowers on it, and a group of people got together, and what they did was in beautiful gold material, created two sunflowers, and then they started putting [00:04:00] names of friends onto each petal, and they deliberately left two blank because Darren and Stephen knew that they were HIV and way back in the early nineties that really, almost was a death sentence. They knew they were going to die, so they left two blank petals for their own names to be added once they went, and that did happen and [00:04:30] that particular panel was completed. So what has happened over the last 24 years in New Zealand is that these AIDS quilts have grown in number. Each one of those blocks, as we call them, has generally eight panels sewn together to create a block. And here in New Zealand, we have 16 of these blocks, and we also have about a dozen panels that haven't been sewn together. And we use those for [00:05:00] small events where people couldn't possibly display one of these. So over time, this has grown with many things in life, people's ways of doing things change. And in the early 19 nineties, um, there were people dying literally almost every week, and people affected in the community would be attending a funeral, probably once a fortnight. [00:05:30] And, uh, at the time I was a celebrant, and I've conducted over 100 age related funerals myself so I can look at panels on these and not only look at the name, but I remember the person, and in many cases I was there at their death bed, and all of those things bring to life seems unusual contradiction, but they bring to life the person named. And so over time [00:06:00] medication and treatments have really affected the number of deaths. Now, I've got a private book which I've tipped over the years. Um, and it just records all the people that I've helped care for. And if you were to look at it, you see, you know, 1992 33 1994 40 90 it goes like that. And all of a sudden [00:06:30] around the mid nineties, the numbers start to decrease. Now. The most recent age related death for me was just a couple of months ago. It was the first in four years, which is a big difference to having them every couple of weeks and having panels being made one after the other. The reality is we haven't had a panel made for [00:07:00] 10 years. People's way of expressing things have changed. The number of deaths has changed and we have a little laugh. Dare I say it? But the person who died a couple of months ago was 93 and I was asked to go and visit him in 1993 because he was an old [00:07:30] man, then of 73 who had HIV, and he wasn't expected to live very long. He needed someone to support him and someone to help plan his funeral. 19 years later, we had his funeral and he was 92 and as he said to me about a year and a half before he died, Oh, Michael, [00:08:00] he said. This bloody HIV is not the problem. It's bloody old age. Yeah, when you get to 92 93. Yes, that's old age that took him. And the previous one before that that I can speak of a chap called Schlomo was a good Kiwi boy. You know, the name of Sean Maguire, who decided to become Jewish, changed his name to Schlomo, and we became [00:08:30] really close friends. There is no panel for him, but he contracted HIV at the age of 20. And after 20 years of medication, four years ago, just at Easter weekend, he had said to me, I know you won't agree with me, Michael, but I've had enough pills. I'm gonna stop taking the pills and the doctors told me about 14 to 18 months and I'll be gone well 14 months almost to the day he was gone. [00:09:00] But that's a huge difference in terms of caring and holding hands and being part of the final life journey of people. From a period of most of the time I've been associated. In the last five years, I've actually been the guardian of the quilts. Now I've got a lovely voice, and I know you like listening to me. But, Nicky, Nicky, Eddie was what we [00:09:30] called in those days a convenor of the quilts, uh, someone who would, if you like, get a committee together, see that these panels were being made and so on and particularly affected because of her own brother's situation. So it's far better now that she shares something about her brother and the particular panel. And I think, too, um, Nicky, because we're only [00:10:00] a small group when you're ready, probably makes more sense for us to go and stand up there with you. I know it's an emotional thing for you and Megan, but this is part of the gift we bring to something like today. So, you know, there will be a time for questions when Nicky is finished. If you have any but Basically what we've done today is brought these eight memorial quilts which will now become part of this New Zealand National Museum to [00:10:30] so that future generations will see what could easily have just disintegrated completely and been lost. We don't expect that HIV and AIDS is gonna go away for a heck of a long time. Even if lives are lived much longer, it'll still be around for a few generations. Yet even if we do succeed in decreasing it in New Zealand So these are very important to us. And we've just been privileged [00:11:00] to have a agree to take them as part of the national treasure, the Tonga of A in New Zealand. So, Nicky, I'll give it to you for a few minutes. And Megan, of course, too, if she wishes. Well, firstly, thank you very much. Um, and I before I start to say anything on a personal level, I just want to with all my [00:11:30] with all my heart, thank Michael and Kevin, Gareth and Roger for all the work that they've put into bringing this this New Zealand AIDS memorial quilt to our national museum. So thank you very much. And just again to acknowledge the new caregivers of it. And, um, I know it will be treated with the utmost honour and respect. So on that level, thank you very much. Um, my whole our journey [00:12:00] as a family began in 1985. Um, with HIV when I was just a young mum in the burbs in Brisbane. Um, when my young brother called to say he was coming up to Brisbane, he he needed to talk to me. And, um, for some reason, when I came off that phone call, I kind of knew somewhere in the back of my mind I knew because he had been no saint. Let me tell you, he had been no saint. And because at that point, it was, [00:12:30] um um, being perceived as a gay men's disease if you like, Um, and with all the horrendous, um, homophobic, I guess, um, policy of the time, Um, in the back of my mind. I I knew. And as it so happened, yes, when he arrived, and he's sitting across from me and he said, I don't know how to say this, and I'm sitting there. Just just say it. Just say it. Just say it, you know? And he said to me, I went [00:13:00] to the Albion Centre in Sydney and he said, and I had a test for HIV and and I looked at him and the tears came up in his eyes and he said to me and I came back positive to this day, I never thought anything more about it, other than to say to him, What can we do or what can I do? And he said, Just love and support me as you always have, and I would like to think of the family [00:13:30] from that journey in his life. We did that all the way through until seven years later when we lost him. Now I'll skip those seven years because there was good times and bad times through those seven years, because that's the journey of a person with HIV related illnesses. And um, there were, as I said, fun times. And as family we tried to get together as as as much as possible. In that time, however, he decided to come back from [00:14:00] Sydney in uh 19, late 1989. I think it was because at that time he he had become extremely unwell. And who else was going to care for him as well? Other than his family, you know? So he packed up and he came back to New Zealand and and some few months later, we did ourselves, um, came back from from Brisbane to help care for him because it was very important to us for us to, um, ensure that he left this world with as [00:14:30] much dignity as as humanly possible. So he was cared for at home all the way through in this period when he was kind of, um I guess it would be quite early 1991 when you could see the deterioration was really quite significant and that probably we weren't going to have him for Christmas 1991. And in this time, I've come back from New Zealand. And Darren Darren Horn, who Michael just spoke about earlier, used to come [00:15:00] around and give Rob massage. So he was. Darren was a volunteer with the Burnet Centre, and he would come around to give massage to Robin, and at that time he happened to Darren happened to mention to me that he was getting together with others in the committee to have an official unfolding of the unveiling of the New Zealand AIDS Memorial. And, um, did he think Robin would want to be on there? So I said, Well, I would ask him I would ask him, um and I knew that Robin knew that what the court was all about because he had been [00:15:30] at the unveiling of the unfolding of the Sydney one back in 1988. If memory serves me correctly thereabouts and, um, he I said to him, Would you like a panel made? And he said to me, Yes, yes. So you would. And I said to him in that case, what would you like put on? And he said, I don't know. I will leave that up to you. Well, he, um he passed away on the 20th of May 1991 and as it would happen, that was my son's 17th birthday. [00:16:00] Um, I might add at this point that my daughter Megan she is his birthday. So she was born on his 18th birthday, So I always figured that he kind of did that just so that nobody would ever forget him so that there were these two very significant dates that were never going to be forgotten. But moving along, um, the panel And when he decided, um, after he had passed away and we decided and we were trying to think together what to To to put together on his panel. Um, [00:16:30] And looking back at his life, um, thinking, Oh, my goodness, where do you start? And at first it actually seemed quite a daunting task the six by 3 6 ft by 3 ft panel to to have to put something in. But as I said to to Gareth a little early in the finish, it wasn't big enough because it's not that he he was a big, loud person in his life. It's just that there were so many facets to his life. And how do you put that into to to to a panel. So just very quickly. Firstly, the it was very important [00:17:00] for his nieces and nephews of the time, because he was never going to be a father. So they were his Children to him, and it was very important that they they were, um, put there, if you like, for a long time. At that point in time, Waiheke island because he was Waiheke Island born, um, and, um, live most of his adult life in Australia. The the Dolphin Because, um, one he just seemed to have a real affinity as many people do with dolphins. And, um, I believe there was such a thing as reincarnation. That's [00:17:30] where he'd be dolphin in the sea and free because he loved the sun, the beach and, um, load of winters loath the winters, um, over on the other panel there, where he's got his buttons and his chill that that that recognises the gay man that recognises how he used to like to party up at sleaze ball and Mardi Gras and anything else that might be going And, you know, the the the pink triangle if you like. Um, we we we We did that because we weren't going to put away the fact that he Yes, he he'd been a gay man. [00:18:00] He was He was proud of who he was. And, um, it was the huge part of who he was to us as well. Um, the Irish farewell. Farewell. Prayer is something my mother wanted. Um, and yes, we have some Irish ancestry in there. But I think for us it was well, until we see him again, then you know, he would be in God's keeping, um, the tartan around the the blue panel over there, um, is to recognise and acknowledge our our Scott ancestry. [00:18:30] So that was the we managed to get that done. That panel done just in a time of after six weeks of of of his going and handed into and I took it. I remember this taking it into the library at, um, just at Auckland Hospital where the workshops were happening. And, um, hand that over. And, um, it was hard. It was hard letting it go because we were still in the raw grief, or I certainly was was still in the raw grief of having lost him, but knew with all my heart, you want to be there [00:19:00] on opening night. So, um yeah, And from that grew my involvement. I you know, I used to work. I hand sow those blocks together, hand sowed those blocks together. A lot of them. Um um I was telling the story a little bit earlier. The the night of opening night. We were waiting for panel to arrive from Wellington with with Daniel Fielding so that he could That one panel was going to finish off the block for the the unveiling at the Auckland Art Gallery. And we were literally on our hands and knees, four of [00:19:30] us laughing and carrying on trying to sew this one panel and to to complete the block all before opening time. And that was completed 20 minutes before all the dignitaries arrived. So we were pretty Chuck with ourselves there. And from that came my groove. My as a volunteer, Um, um grew a little bit of a pay position for my role as a as a pay convenor. And from that point, um, I travelled and was very fortunate and privileged to travel the country with these beautiful treasures to be able [00:20:00] to use those as a tangible educational tool for for for, um, for schools and varying communities. I've been to Newland teaspoon collecting clubs with them. I've been I've been There's that song. I've been everywhere, man. Well, I'm telling you, I've been everywhere. So with these quills, um, our very first visit was on to in Northland, and that was actually going to be a very scheduled trip. That trip turned to be three weeks long because [00:20:30] it word of mouth like the bushfire does when the just went from word of mouth, word of mouth and with those courts were not to pass a marae. So there were many, many visits on to many Maria that weren't really scheduled. So, um, it was and and I have to say, a very awesome experience. They were even taken all the way to bay, and it was a pouring. It was a rainy, rainy day. It really and truly was. But, you know, as those quilts were taken out of the van each and every block and carried down to Spirit [00:21:00] Bay or the top of Spirit Bay and then fold a beautiful the sun, the clouds parted. And I kid you, not The rays of sun came down on those quilt blocks and that will be a sight. And all my life I will never, ever forget. So I've been very privileged and very honoured to have many sharing many wonderful stories and amazing journeys. I was privileged twice to be able to take part of our New Zealand quilt to Washington DC to represent New Zealand's quilt and and and our history because it's a little bit, you know, a little [00:21:30] bit different because we have our and the and and, um um and be able to speak and just say, um how we have adapted What was the names? Quilt project, If you like to to our own culture here in New Zealand. So on two occasions there, I was very fortunate, And, um and then, you know, I I was about 4.5 5 years. I think I did that for so today, for me is on a personal level. Um, I can't express. [00:22:00] Truly. I cannot express what it means to myself and my daughter to have them here at te Papa to to live on forever and be looked after and on a professional level, I always used to say, Well, when this pandemic finishes, all I ever wanted for them to be was in a museum where they would be looked at exactly as part of our history and, um, for our resource for generations to come. So thank you very much. [00:22:30] Thank you so much, Nicky. And, you know, I could have spent that time talking but it wouldn't have been the personal story. Even though I can tell many personal stories, I just want to add one more thing. Um, many of you, if not all of you will be aware that the gay community adopted the rainbow flag, Uh, very early on as a symbol of unity and the colours of the rainbow and all of that and what Nicky said just [00:23:00] then about, um, the sun coming out on quilts. I've had several experiences in Auckland where I live, where I've been driving along the street, not in recent times. But I'd be driving my car and see a rainbow, and that subconscious in me would say, 00, and you know, before the day was over, I'd get a call. Michael, we've lost so and so uh, [00:23:30] you know, it doesn't matter what you believe or don't believe. But when a community adopts a rainbow as part of its symbolism and you see a rainbow and someone's died, it's a bit spooky, and you'll notice that most of us today have been wearing a red ribbon that again was adopted by the community to somehow express the link to remind ourselves of people who succumb to HIV [00:24:00] related causes and I might be wrong here. But, you know, we have ribbons for everything these days, but I'm pretty sure, actually, the Red ribbon was the original one, and then other people copied it. And, um, of course, America has grown to have the largest AIDS quilt of all. And I read just recently that if they were to take all of the blocks of the American AIDS group and lay them all down like we [00:24:30] have side by side, if there was a space where they could because there are 47,000 blocks of quilts and you walk past and you stood for one minute in front of each block, it would take you 33 days to view the whole quilt. You can understand why we are fortunate that te Papa has accepted our small 16 to go to [00:25:00] our national museum. A lot of other countries around the world they wouldn't know what to do with them except them. Put them in a store room. They probably will rot away somewhere. Sadly, anyone got any question? Then just take your time, uh, and have a look around anyone like to ask anything. Don't really have to, because the quilts speak for themselves. Thank you for your time. And our official time is over. But [00:25:30] I'm here to answer any questions. And thanks for being with us. And, uh, for those of you who don't know Stephanie Gibson here from te Papa has been the person very instrumental in working with the directors of the museum to see that this gift has been made today to the museum. It just wasn't practical for us to put all 16 on display today. Thank you. And, uh, have a safe journey. Thank you.
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