HIV, AIDS and the Community Response in Blackpool

The fear years

When AIDS arrived in Britain in the 1980s, Blackpool's gay scene was barely a decade old. The Flamingo on Talbot Road had opened in 1979, gay hotels were spreading through the terraces near North station, and the town was becoming a magnet for gay visitors from across the north. Then came a disease that nobody understood and plenty of people were happy to blame on gay men.

Basil Newby, who ran the Flamingo, has described those years as heartbreaking. The fear reached into the most ordinary corners of running a club. In the late 1980s engineers refused to come in and repair the Flamingo's boiler because they were frightened they might catch the virus. If tradesmen would not touch a boiler, it is not hard to imagine what customers faced elsewhere, from landlords and employers to their own families.

Like most British towns, Blackpool lost people, and their stories are among the most important still waiting to be gathered. There is no published record of the town's early AIDS deaths, its first support groups or the friends and volunteers who cared for the sick. Much of that history lives only in the memories of people who were there.

Defiance on stage

The scene's answer to fear and hostility was, in part, to throw open the doors. Newby has said that the climate of the late 1980s, with the AIDS crisis and Section 28, a law that followed a speech made at the 1987 Conservative conference in Blackpool, pushed him to create a show where everyone was welcome and everyone was equal. That show became Funny Girls, which opened on Queen Street in 1994 and turned drag cabaret into a night out for the whole town.

Artists have since returned to that period. A 2018 film made in Blackpool, Something for the Boys, set the town's gilded venues and drag performers against the memory of the AIDS years and the strains of the present, featuring Betty Legs Diamond among others.

Renaissance: a charity in the quarter

The organisation most closely tied to HIV support in Blackpool is Renaissance. It began in 1986 as a drugs helpline for Lancashire, founded by Kathryn Talboys with funding from a children's charity, and grew over the years into a non-clinical sexual health and substance-use charity. Its company was registered for many years as Drugline Lancashire before formally taking the Renaissance name. Its base is on Dickson Road, right in the middle of the LGBTQ+ quarter.

By 2023 Renaissance described itself as having supported Blackpool's LGBTQ+ community for almost thirty years, and it remains the town's lead charity for HIV support, awareness and testing. Its work today includes:

• one-to-one support for people living with HIV,
• free, confidential HIV and STI testing at regular evening clinics,
• a free postal condom service,
• outreach to sex workers,
• LGBTQ+ health and wellbeing support around gender and sexuality, and
• social and support groups for the LGBTQ+ community.

Renaissance is also one of the partners behind Horizon, the council-commissioned drug, alcohol and sexual health service for Blackpool, and it helped found the Be Who You Want To Be quarter in 2023–24. It later developed the Be You Business Quality Mark with the council's public health team.

When the We're Still Here! heritage project held a Pride show-and-tell with Showtown in 2022, protest placards from Renaissance and the Empowerment charity were among the objects on display, a reminder that sexual health campaigning is part of the town's queer heritage too.

Testing in the scene

One of the most practical changes in recent years has been taking testing to where people already are. The W3 sauna in the town centre has hosted a monthly sexual-health testing clinic, and Renaissance runs drop-in testing clinics and joins national testing weeks. The idea is simple: make it as easy as possible for anyone to know their status.

Blackpool becomes a Fast-Track City

In late 2023, on the eve of World AIDS Day, Blackpool signed the Fast-Track Cities declaration, joining London, Manchester and Brighton in the UK and around 250 places worldwide that have committed to ending new HIV transmissions and AIDS-related deaths by 2030 and tackling stigma.

The town did not start from scratch. Blackpool Teaching Hospitals' HIV service had already met the international "95-95-95" targets in 2019, meaning that at least 95 per cent of people with HIV knew their status, 95 per cent of those were on treatment, and 95 per cent of those had an undetectable viral load. Local partners committed to building on that, with the remaining challenge being to find and test everyone who does not yet know they have HIV. Council and NHS leaders used the launch to stress that modern treatment gives a normal life expectancy and that people on effective treatment cannot pass the virus on.

The Be Who You Want To Be action plan folded this into its health theme, alongside a Fast-Track Cities plan, a review of sexual health and PrEP services and a needs assessment of trans and gender-diverse people's health, which Blackpool's public health team helped lead in 2025.

Remembering

We have found no permanent AIDS memorial in Blackpool, and the names of the people the town lost in the 1980s and 1990s have never been gathered in one place. If you remember friends, partners, nurses, volunteers or support groups from those years, your memories could help change that. Our guide to heritage projects and archives explains how to share them safely and, if you prefer, anonymously.

Get tested

Testing is free and confidential. Renaissance's clinics, the town's sexual health service and postal testing kits all make it easy to check your status. Clinic days and times can change, so check before you go.