Hazell Dean, Queen of Hi-NRG, enjoys an afternoon with the Lunch Positive team
– 3 min read
Last week Hazell Dean, Queen of Hi-NRG, was welcomed to Lunch Positive, the Brighton-based charity supporting anyone living with HIV. At their weekly lunch club Hazell got the opportunity to meet volunteers and members and see first-hand the services offered by Lunch Positive including peer-led HIV community spaces, drop-ins and support groups to name a few.
The singer is a staunch supporter of HIV charities and did An Audience With Hazell Dean, which took place last May in the Grosvenor Bar in Hove, and which raised over £2,000 for Lunch Positive. Another event, which we’ve been told is top secret for the moment, is being planned for this autumn. However, this was her first opportunity to attend one of their lunch clubs.
The LGBTQ+ community made my career and were my tribe.
Hazell said: “Lunch Positive really is a grassroots charity which is so evidently led with passion and dedication and the most incredible team, all of whom are volunteers providing safe spaces and great food.
"I’d a chance to sit and have lunch with everyone and was blown away by the energy of the volunteers who’d barely had a chance to sit down since being on their feet for days in Preston Park over Pride, running their food stall which raises some of the money needed to fund the charity.
"Seeing first-hand the dedication of Gary and the team made me realise how deserved they were in receiving the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service a few years ago.
"For me personally there were emotions which are very hard to describe. The LGBTQ+ community made my career and were my tribe. Just as I started having hits and performing across the world, we started seeing the emergence of an illness that at first didn’t have a name.
Whilst globally there is still a lot of work to do, and nationally we have to eradicate stigma, we’re in a monumentally different place.
"Of course, HIV/AIDS would go on to devastate our community and see us lose a generation of wonderful, beautiful young men (as it was predominantly men in those years) who should have had rich and full lives ahead of them. My support over the last 40 years came from a deeply personal place and seeing it unfold.
"And now to see how far we’ve come, where anyone on treatment and undetectable can’t pass it on and where PrEP, a preventive medication, has been a game-changer. Whilst globally there is still a lot of work to do, and nationally we have to eradicate stigma, we’re in a monumentally different place.”
Lunch Positive really is a grassroots charity which is so evidently led with passion and dedication and the most incredible team.
While Hazell was too modest, or perhaps private, to discuss the impact she made in those years we found a quote from Russell T Davies, said at the time of making It’s A Sin in which he included one of her biggest hits Whatever I Do.
Russell said: “I wanted those women in there - the Kelly Maries and the Hazell Deans - because when the AIDS crisis came along, they kept coming to the gay clubs. They would turn up and perform at 2am and that was their life for decades. They never abandoned their gay fanbase, they never turned away. They hugged people when you were being told not to. Those women are soldiers.”
As she left to enjoy the sunshine on Brighton beach and return to being #retiredandfabulous (if you don’t get the reference look at her Facebook page), she said “What a wonderful day celebrating the friendship, support and community offered by Lunch Positive. I look forward to seeing the team again later this year”.
