ACT UP UK’s first demonstration occurred less than two years after their counterparts in the USA. Like their US counterparts, they specialised in non-violent, direct action to get their message across. To get the ball rolling, they began by picketing the AGM of drugs giant Wellcome in January 1989.

The following month saw them outside Pentonville prison in London, trying to get condoms over the prison walls.

Britain’s Conservative government had dragged it’s feet throughout the 80s when it came to addressing the AIDS crisis. Margaret Thatcher had done everything in her power to ensure that any response was in line with her ‘Victorian values’. Such was the level of her interference, the first public information campaign confused more people than it educated.

By 1988 – seven years after the first reported British case of AIDS – the government was still ignoring uncomfortable realities. In this case it was denying that prisoners needed condoms. It is hard to understand the logic behind this. Perhaps they felt that men in an all male prison ‘shouldn’t’ need them. Or that hoary old chestnut, that giving them condoms would encourage to have sex. Or that they simply didn’t deserve them.

Whatever it was, the reality was that the lack of condoms was putting prisoners at risk of HIV. So ACT UP UK decided to take this on as their one of their first campaigns and duly turned up outside Pentonville prison.

On their first visit, they used helium filled balloons to try and float the condoms across. At subsequent protests slingshots were used.  Whether the condoms got across is not known but it’s believed that the message did – even though the government response was far from adequate. Basically, responsibility was placed on the shoulders of prison doctors who were allowed to ‘prescribe’ condoms as they thought fit. Still a long way from a more realistic solution of making them freely available to all prisoners.

[My thanks to Rob Archer for his input on this post]