CASS MANN - Tribute

NEWS RELEASE, Singapore, February 22nd 2010

FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF CASS MANN (1948-2009) RELEASE TRIBUTE TO THE LATE AIDS CAMPAIGNER AND CO-FOUNDER OF POSITIVELY HEALTHY, THE BRITISH SUPPORT GROUP FOR GAY MEN LIVING WITH HIV AND AIDS

Download Obituary (PDF)

Go to Cass Mann Memorial website

'CASS MANN, co-founder of POSITIVELY HEALTHY and one of the first gay men in the UK to be diagnosed with HIV, died in London of Hodgkin's Lymphoma on April 18th 2009. It took five months for the police to break the news to his family. Following Cass's funeral in September 2009 his brother MARCUS MANSUKHANI posted news of Cass's death on YouTube via AIDS Videos. On reading his message, some of Cass's friends contacted Marcus, and a consensus emerged that we should pay tribute publicly to Cass's 24-year campaign to help gay men live well and healthily with HIV.'

Marcus writes: "On the 18th September 2009 I received a phone call from my sister telling me that my brother had died in April. Although I knew he had been struggling with his health and his passing was not unexpected the fact that it had happened five months earlier was shocking to say the least.
"I tried to find out as much as I could about what happened to him and in doing so I realised just how many people he had helped and how passionate he was about his work. We were not a close family - geography and, in some quarters, homophobia, split us apart - but hearing and reading about my older brother's work from his friends and colleagues has helped me appreciate what a remarkable individual he was. He was incredibly stubborn and held fast to his deeply-held principles through thick and thin. He was denigrated and vilified by many during his lifetime for refusing to give in to the pressure on gay men with HIV and AIDS to 'give up and die'. It is perhaps ironic that despite having been ostracised for his stance by the mainstream AIDS organisations in the Eighties and Nineties Cass's message of living healthily with HIV is now standard fare in the field. Neither his prescience nor his commitments to people living with HIV have ever been publicly acknowledged and we feel that it is high time that they are."

"With the help of some of Cass's friends I have assembled a tribute to my late brother. We wish to honour his work with and for his fellow gay men living with HIV. Given the length of time it has taken for news of his death to filter out we also want to ensure that other friends and associates are aware of his passing. Cass's possessions, including his address books and Positively Healthy's records, were destroyed following his death and we have no other way to notify people."

The attached obituary inevitably fails to do Cass justice - how can one convey in words this man's drive and dynamic spirit? But it is a start, and it is our sincere hope that friends and associates with whom we've not yet managed to make contact might read it and spend a few minutes in remembrance of this extraordinary man.