'Brave and beautiful people' ed in Aids quilt display

Frankie O'Reilly was nine-years-old when he met his future partner Georgie Long at primary school in Northern Ireland.

The pair moved to London at the start of the 1980s, where Frankie worked as a traffic warden by day and a drag queen by night. By that time the two had long been inseparable - first as childhood best friends, and then as partners.

In 1985, both aged 25, Frankie and Georgie were diagnosed with HIV.

"I started seeing friends slowly dying," Frankie says.

"It was like being at a bus stop with your friends and they start getting on buses, and then you're the last person at the stop."

In 1992, Georgie died of an Aids-related illness.

Now, Georgie and hundreds like him are being ed as part of the UK Aids Memorial Quilt, a patchwork creation of 42 quilts and 23 textile s representing nearly 400 people who lost their lives to HIV/Aids in the UK, made by the people who loved them.

The huge quilt will be on display in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in London between 12 and 16 June.

Although different parts of it have been on display before, the showing at the Tate will be the largest public display of the quilt in its entirety since it was created in 1994.

It was a month after Georgie died that Frankie decided to take part in the memorial quilt project, which had been brought to the UK from America by Scottish activist Alistair Hulme, who had seen an early display of the American version of the quilt, which was created in 1985, in San Francisco.

"I had nursed Georgie at home while he was sick and the last three years had been just awful," Frankie says, adding that helping to create the quilt helped him through the worst of his grief.

Now 65 and describing himself as the "last man standing" of his friendship group, he says the quilt is a "reminder of the bravest and most beautiful people" he knew.

Cathy Johns and Grace McElwee also took part in creating the UK Aids memorial quilt in the 1990s by making a for friend Michael Trask, who died in 1993.

"We were both librarians and got on like a house on fire as soon as we met in 1985," Cathy says.

Michael became ill five years later, but "didn't want to talk about it" at first. For a while Cathy says they "didn't know what was wrong with him", before eventually coming to with the fact that he had Aids.

She chose to take part in the project after Michael died as a way to "create an enduring tribute to him".

It took Cathy and Grace around a month to complete the textile, which Cathy says was "part of the healing process".

The women chose to stitch on to their the houses of Camden, where Michael lived, and the tree of life, to represent the parks in London he was fond of.

The quilt was last on show in Hyde Park in 1994, when Cathy worked as a volunteer on the display.

The project has always been more than a display of activism for Cathy - she says the quilt has "got the stitches of love in it".

She says she is excited to see the quilt on display at the Tate Modern as an "outpouring of love and friendship and dedication".

Author Charlie Porter initiated the exhibition after writing to the Tate's director in July 2024 asking them to display the quilt.

"The history of the quilt involves it being displayed in iconic locations," Porter tells the BBC, referencing how the US quilt was displayed for the first time on the National Mall in Washington DC, during the national march for lesbian and gay rights.

He hopes the UK quilt being on display again will allow more people to see it, but also "give people a chance to grieve", after many were unable to do so properly at the time of their loved ones' deaths in the 80s and 90s due to the stigma attached to HIV.

The 384 people commemorated on the quilt include notable figures such as novelist Bruce Chatwin and actors Denholm Elliott and Ian Charleson.

Alongside the quilt, a documentary will be played that captures footage from when the quilt was last displayed in 1994 in Hyde Park.

"A documentary was made at the time but no one would take it," Porter says.

"We thought the footage was lost, but it has been found and digitised."

In the mid-90s there was no treatment for people living with HIV, and Porter says the documentary along with the quilt highlights "the breadth of devastation" caused by the disease.

Karin Hindsbo, Tate Modern director, says the quilt is "an incredible feat of creative human expression" and believes it will be a "deeply moving experience" for those who come to see it.