our first witness, john 0'reilly, was a nurse at the unit who welcomed one of the most famous women in for everybody affected by hiv—aids around the world, it was a major moment. it was a major coup. it was amazing. officially, the princess was simply opening the first purpose—billed hiv—aids ward in britain. but more significantly, she demonstrated her confidence to staff and the public that aids cannot be taken in by casual contact. people were frightened, really frightened, because we didn't know what it was to begin with. there was a lot of aids—phobia, a lot of homophobia. the media were unkind, particularly the tabloid press. i hated all of that kind of misinformation and hysteria. the headlines were scaremongering, ignorant, misleading the general public. as far as i'm concerned, the gay plague was the homophobia, not the virus. i didn't tell anybody what i did. i didn't even tell fellow nurses or doctors what i did. ijust said i was a nurse at the middlesex hospital. i didn't feel safe. none of us felt safe. but we had very, very few staff. we had very few medical and nursing s