Britain’s first HIV-positive candidate: a very moving interview with Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett

Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett is well known to fellow Liberal Democrat activists as Adrian Trett, having changed his name just a couple of days ago following his lovely wedding at the weekend. (Just in time to get his new married name on his election posters and nomination form as he pointed out to me!)

What’s much less well known is the huge emotional rollercoaster of his earlier life and his amazing perseverance in the face of adversity, as he’s explained in a very moving interview with Buzzfeed.

You really have to read the whole piece, but here’s a sample:

Meet Britain’s First HIV-Positive Parliamentary Candidate

In a poignant interview, Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett, Lib Dem candidate for Vauxhall, reveals the extraordinary, harrowing story of how he contracted the virus, and explains why he felt so compelled to speak out.

I thought I knew what Adrian’s story would entail. But it is only as he begins to describe the harrowing events that led up to his diagnosis that the reality emerges: coming out about being HIV-positive – an act of extraordinary courage – is only half the story.

Looking back to his schooldays, he adds: “I tried to throw myself out of the window a couple of times.” It was only exceptional luck that saved him. “On both occasions my father interrupted me doing it, not realising what he’d interrupted. I was just out of the window, and he came up and wondered what on earth I was doing on the sill. I just said, ‘I’m looking out the window’ and pretended nothing was happening.”

Adrian speaks quickly, so quickly that his words pile up with no time for their meaning to resonate. His father did not know about the taunts or that on one occasion an older pupil knocked him unconscious.

All the best for the campaign Adrian and, far more importantly, for happiness with your newly-married partner.