Three double rows of quilts.

Some are beautifully simple, others are elaborate works of art. There are one or two that express some kind of humour, but not many.

It is perhaps the largest community art project in the world.

There are just under four hundred names on the UK section of the Quilt, which was on display. Globally, the AIDS Memorial Quilt contains tens of thousands of names across more than fifty thousand panels. Many people are honoured without names.

There are men and women commemorated.

There are older people and there are young people – mostly, it is young men in the prime of their life. Some had photographs woven into the fabric: beautiful young people destroyed by a cruel disease and a discompassionate society.

There was one quilt that simply had a note saying that the family did not wish for it to be displayed and that the stigma lives on.

There were a couple for Freddy Mercury.

There were quilts that had whole communities, or chosen extended families, listed.

There were many from one lover to their dead partner. For some, this was their only way to express grief, having been banned from the funeral by blood relatives who may have persecuted their child in life.

I found myself wondering how many lovers, creating a quilt to commemorate their partner, were themselves victims of the disease.

The dates ranged from the early eighties to the late nineties, with most being the middle of that period. I met my husband during the later half of that time.

One had the slogans from the Conservative government of the time: “pretend family relationship”, “the gay disease”, and so on. I remember those firsthand.

There was one that simply read “mum”.

There were some from grief-stricken parents. Such was the fear of my own mother, once upon a time: that I would die alone – the silent thing part that she never said out loud was “of AIDS”. Many of the earlier sufferers did die isolated and without human comfort.

There was one that was made up of baby clothes. One year old.

That proved too much to read.

Each quilt was so many brokenhearts.

Perhaps AIDS could not have been prevented. But it needn’t have been so horrific. The persecution of government and the lack of gay rights made the lives of the dying and their survivors more of a hell than it needed to be.

Perhaps we needed AIDS to wake society up to the unfairness of life.

What a cruel way to have to teach our friends, family, and fellow humans how to be human.