The Fighting Temeraire

The Fighting Temeraire is a story relatively untold. Rob’s long term partner died from AIDS just before the New Year in 1990. It follows the first year of bereavement; the calendar structure of the year parallels the unfolding story. It is a detailed biography capturing the atmosphere of the time in the emerging days of this epidemic in the mid 1980’s. As much as it is a bereavement story of loss it is also a love story as the relationship is recreated. Other bereavement books might give case examples, or clinically describe bereavement in ‘stages’ – this book brings a total experience to life. It is not an indulgent subjective story. It was written under the auspices of a very experienced and well respected psychoanalyst, Gillian Parker, and Shirley Lunn, Senior Counsellor at the Mildmay Mission Hospice. Tim came from a farming family. As many did and still do he kept his private life away from his family. He was a successful theatre and opera director. Unable to come out to his family or to share his HIV+ diagnosis with them or his colleagues and friendship network Rob reflects on the imploding experience of an illness highly stigmatised at the time, reinforced by homophobia and ignorance. The journey towards his death is paralleled with the colour and life force of theatre and performance, with many on-stage and off-stage dramas - a Director of the Royal Opera House deposited and left alone on the ground of the car park of the Royal London Hospital when the cab driver transporting him to the hospice discovers he has AIDS and pushes him out onto the tarmac. The distorted and unresolved family relationships carved through ‘being gay’ are not salvageable at the time of death and further contort into the bereavement experience. There are two possible outcomes to grief – successful/unsuccessful. The Fighting Temeraire shows how Rob was able to hold hope and optimism against bitterness and disillusionment. The book will give hope to those in pain that there can be recovery and new life and for those assisting them it gives a map of how to be with those who grieve.