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About this blog

This blog is a place for my non-fiction writing.

There will be posts promoting my writing, in all its areas. I will talk about my writing in general, the inspiration behind it, my writing process and several of the issues I’ve faced writing. It will also contain essays, reviews and other examples of my non-fiction writing. There won't be any politics here but there will be social commentary and personal stories.

(I have started a book reviewing project, I am attempting to review as many of the book I've read as possible, and I am going to post those book reviews here too)

Entries in this blog

With Pride

London Pride 2023: We’ve Come a Long Way

It was London Pride last weekend and again we attended it. It has been a tradition in my life ever since I first moved to London. It is “our day” when LGBTQ people can celebrate out and openly on London’s streets. This year again I noticed a trend that I first saw at last year’s London Pride, the teenager attending their first Pride, but they aren’t alone. I saw fourteen, fifteen and sixteen year olds so obviously on their first Pride and accompanied by their mothers. The mother was dressed
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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With Pride

With Pride, July 2019

Something New Every Year (July 2019)   The other Saturday, I did something I’d never done before. At my age, it isn’t often I get to do something as new as this, but the other Saturday I marched in the London Pride March openly as a nurse. I’ve marched in the Pride March many times before, with friends, with LGBT organisations, but never before openly as a nurse. This year, a group of staff in my Trust’s LGBT Network organised to take part in the London Pride March and we had
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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With Pride

With Pride, January 2017

And Some Things Change and Some Things Remain the Same (January 2017) I started to come out when I was nineteen, more than thirty years ago, and nearly overnight I lost almost all of my friends; I was ostracised just for being gay. It was a shocking experience that has left a lasting impact on me. Today, I am married to my husband Martin and work as a community nurse in North London. Everyone at work knows my husband and no one has a problem with him, I have almost forgotten the l
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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With Pride

With Pride, August 2015

Do Unhealthy Attitudes Ever Change? (August 2015) During my first year of nurse training (twenty-five years ago) I ran into a wall of homophobia. I was told by some of my vocal colleagues that I only wanted to be a nurse to see naked men, that all gay men deserved AIDS, that I was a danger to children, and that God could heal me and make me “normal”.  I endured it because it was 1990 and homophobia was what I expected as a gay man. It's now 2015 and our society has changed so much
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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With Pride

With Pride, January 2015

A Safe Place for All? (January 2015) Freddie Mercury died from AIDS in November 1991. I was a student nurse at the time. One of my colleagues told me that he “deserved it” because of his “lifestyle”. I exploded faced with her homophobia, but I was turned on by others who supported her, saying their views were right because they wanted to be parents and any parent would want to protect their sons from the likes of Freddie Mercury. And I was wrong, they said, because I was defending some
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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With Pride

With Pride, July 2008

Marching with Pride (July 2008)   On Saturday (5th July 2008) it was London LGBT Pride and, with bright sunny weather, my partner and I had a wonderful day there. The highlight, as always, was the Pride March. People were laughing and smiling, enjoying walking through central London together and openly. The march was headed by groups representing many of our uniformed and emergency services. First came lesbian, gay and bisexual members of the navy, army and RAF, all in their
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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With Pride

With Pride

The next six blogs form a short series, which I have called “With Pride” because they were all originally comments pieces, on LGBT rights and healthcare, published in the Nursing Standard magazine, and I am proud of having written them. For nearly fifteen years, on and off, I have written comment pieces for Nursing Standard and a lot of them were on LGBT healthcare. These pieces chart changes in attitudes, but they also had recurring themes and one was responding to a very disturbing piece
Drew Payne

Drew Payne in With Pride

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