In 1982, Martyn Butler co-founded the Terrence Higgins Trust, the first organisation in Europe to respond to the health crisis caused by HIV/Aids, and now Britain’s leading HIV charity. It was the death in July that year of his friend, Terry Higgins – one of the first named people to die of an Aids-related illness in the UK – that spurred Martyn, along with Terry’s partner, Rupert Whitaker, to act.
Martyn, who has died aged 71, and Rupert launched the trust with the help of friends to raise money for medical research, but the sums required were huge and would have to be provided by governments and the pharmaceutical industry.
