I had to take a long walk along the seafront after finishing the book, it’s quite the ripping yarn, ripping at the heart, emotionally raw. As we saw in It’s A Sin and can truly appreciate through her memoir, Jill has the ability to inspire through action. When Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends - of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own - she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get. This is Jill Nalder’s first book and it’s a pretty astonishing debut which grips and holds you tight by the hand, urging you not to go, not to put out the light, not to leave a word unread. There’s something about Jill’s straightforward South Welsh narrating of her life which echos the flint and steel in the soul of this Neath girl.

Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder | Waterstones Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder | Waterstones

As it happens, I was also a Jill in the eighties - but not half as good a Jill as real Jill' DAWN FRENCH This book will make you cry and as Jill took the time to educate the reader about the wonderful people who were Colin, Derek, Juan and Dursley - and the many, many others who lost their lives, I knew if I allowed it, I would just become a bawling mess. This book is an absolute eye opener about a time that people are still affected and traumatised by, and while we know now that a HIV diagnosis isn't the death sentence it once was, we still have a long way to go before we overcome the stigma and fear that still rings around such a diagnosis. Her tireless campaigning for Aids awareness and research is the heart of her friend Davies’s It’s A Sin (she has a cameo as the mother of the character inspired by her). In this livestreamed event, Nalder and Davies will be in conversation about both the memoir and the TV show, shining a light on the boys who were stigmatised and shamed, and remembering those who were lost too soon. Jill met the crisis head on . . . She held the hands of so many men. She lost them, and remembered them, and somehow kept going' RUSSELL T DAVIES I actually liked how Jill made some references to the Covid-19 pandemic in her book, as really it's one of the closest things we have now in modern memory to compare to the terrifying era that was the AIDS epidemic including the fear and vilifying of a particular group of people. From healthcare to people in the street, it was too long a time before suffering gay men were treated with the respect that they and any human being deserves as their bodies were slowly ravaged by an illness that takes no prisoners. Jill also makes sure to point out in her book as well how AIDs diagnoses also affected many women and how testing procedure failed women and children who may have contracted the disease whether it be through sexual relations, blood transfusions, or in utero.

Come back when you're older

The author talks a little about the process of the 'coming out' part, but she keeps to herself the most private revelations the young men reveal to her as she plays 'mother hen'/parental substitute to them in different settings. As 'mother hen' she relays very well the disappointment of the young gay men who don't know how to respond to their parents' disappointment in their children's new found honesty with their feelings. What she does not say, which I will, is that as the young men 'come out' they also learn how many feelings and personal choices their parents were taught to suppress in their youth, feelings and actions which the parents expect the young men to suppress in their turn. But the inability to suppress same sex desire is more complex than either parent or young man can understand, but the young men at least try to understand-and create a model that other young men in less open circumstances may try to adapt. As Welsh philosopher Raymond Williams said: ‘To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.’ Jill is radical. Truly, beautifully radical. But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the ‘gay flu’, and Jill and her friends now found their formerly carefree existence under threat. How was it possible to enjoy It’s a Sin, knowing what was to come? Russell T Davies’s great skill was in making it seem like it would be rude not to. It might have been reasonable to expect a certain solemnity from this five-part drama about the arrival of Aids in Britain and the devastation it wrought, but what was less predictable, perhaps, was the furious, beautiful joy of it. It was gut-wrenching and it was terrible, but god, it was funny and it was full of life.

Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder review — meet the

Despite the darkness and despair of parts of the book, Nalder skillfully combines snippets of humour, loads of love and joy and a deep humanity that , despite my tears, kept me reading on. Jill met the crisis head on . . . She held the hands of so many men. She lost them, and remembered them, and somehow kept going’ RUSSELL T DAVIESJill met the crisis head on . . . She held the hands of so many men. She lost them, and remembered them, and somehow kept going’ Russell T Davies, creator of Channel 4’s IT’S A SIN Love from the Pink Palace is just that, a huge throb of love, from a woman who continues to give and share (although she doesn’t mention it here, her charities have raised more than a million pounds for HIV research and support). Her love teaches us that unconditional love will get us through the darkest of times and give us an opportunity to build on the ashes of the glories of those who went before. Engrossing, heart-breaking and inspiring, this is the perfect companion piece to IT'S A SIN' MATT CAIN In particular, one of Jill’s fallen friends tried everything to survive until they were drugs available to control the HIV virus – they very sadly did not but did inspire others to fight on. Some of those are still with us today. That friend made it to 7 August 1995, painfully close to life-saving triple-drug therapy that would arrive less than 12 months later. It was not just Phantom of the Opera that was robbed of such talent. We all were. Time and again.

Love From The Pink Palace - Memories of Love, Loss and Love From The Pink Palace - Memories of Love, Loss and

So what was it like to be gay and live in 1980s and 1990s London? This book will tell you everything you need to know, and more. Like a book I read previously and reviewed here, by a different author, I came to this book via BBC radio. With this book, the radio programme records the author joining her old friend, and the writer of the foreword of this book, Russell T Davies https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0dn... It is a tonic to listen to. By sharing the lives of her ‘boys’ with us and letting us laugh, while we feel the trembling possibilities they all felt were theirs for the taking, Jill does what she promised them. They’ll not be forgotten. It’s knowing what becomes of them, which makes these snatched moments so refulgent. Jill’s stories apotheosize her friends, expose the stigma and shame experienced by people with HIV before the virus had a name. But soon rumours were spreading from America about a frightening illness being dubbed the ‘gay flu’, and Jill and her friends – spirited Juan Pablo, Jae with his beautiful voice, upbeat Dursley, and many others – found that their formerly carefree existence now under threat.There’s a lovely narrative ebb and flow to the book, a lyrical Welshness to it, which allows us to settle down into the story with some joy before the darkness comes in again, then light again, then night deeper than dread, then a dawn, cold, quiet but with things to do to get us through. When Jill Nalder arrived at drama school in London in the early 1980s, she was ready for her life to begin. With her band of best friends – of which many were young, talented gay men with big dreams of their own – she grabbed London by the horns: partying with drag queens at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, hosting cabarets at her glamorous flat, flitting across town to any jobs she could get. Russell T Davies is a good friend of Jill and it’s clear from this book how much of her life he actually used as raw material for It’s A Sin and there’s a lot of memories obviously too naughty for the TV but included with relish in this memoir.