muriel williams sanderson, who died in 2015.ness every month on the bbc news channel or you can catch up on all our films along with more than a thousand radio programmes in our online archive. just go to bbc.co.uk/witness. in 1987 the world was in fear of a deadly new disease which seemed to target gay men. news headlines created hysteria which suggested hiv and aids could be picked up from casual contact. but it tookjust one photograph with the world's most famous woman, diana, princess of wales, to change that. john 0'reilly was a nurse at britain's first purpose—built aids ward. for everybody affected by hiv and aids around the world, it was a major coup. it was amazing. officially the princess was simply opening britain's first purpose—built aids ward but perhaps more significantly she demonstrated to staff and patients her confidence that aids cannot be contracted by casual contact. people were frightened, really frightened, because we didn't really know what it was to begin with. there was a lot of aids—phobia, a lot of h