Faced with the deaths of so many, the only viable and bravest reaction available to the gay community was defiance, a reassertion of their pride. That is how Aids became defined in the popular consciousness, as a curse with some curious moral agenda: the 'gay plague'. I remember a friend running into the sitting room of my flat one evening and shakily asking whether I had heard about a new disease that was killing gay men. Although I knew that I was loved I felt unsteady, and this unsteadiness was about to be exacerbated by something that I and so many others could never have anticipated, the arrival and devastating impact of Aids. I had long known that I was gay, a fact that didn't seem to bother my family or my friends, something for which I will always be grateful. I had little money, I was unsure what career I wanted to pursue and the city, which I have since grown to love, seemed confusing and intimidating. I arrived to live in London a sheltered, possibly even privileged, young man and, to be frank, the first years were hard. This, I hope, would have pleased her because, in her quiet way, she played a heroic part in that fight. Gay politics and the tortuous fight for dignity and equality are inextricably linked in my mind to my first reading of Mary Renault. Gay men now stand very nearly equal with their heterosexual brothers before the law. Since then, despite predictable and poisonous outbreaks of homophobia, the courage of activists has ensured that the age of consent is now the same as that for heterosexuals, discrimination in the workplace is outlawed and civil partnerships – more popular than anticipated – are an unexceptional part of our lives.

For most of the time the subject was ignored. I grew up in a world where the idea of love between two men was, at best, tolerated. During that half century, life for gay men in Britain has changed in ways that I could never have foreseen as a young man.

The Charioteer by Mary Renault