AIDS activist, educator and quilter: memorial headstone for Darren Horn

I never met Darren Horn, but I heard his moving story from a close friend, (then Father) Michael Bancroft, 10 years ago.

Darren lived in Auckland and was a founding member of Auckland Community AIDS Services (ACAS), and an early member of the Auckland Branch of the NZAF. He organised the first AIDS March up Queen Street in the early 1990s, and was also one of the early organisers of the New Zealand AIDS Memorial Quilt. In 1992 he wrote “All the quilts speak of love, compassion and memories. Each is composed of recollection, sadness, acceptance and letting go. The quilts help us to learn and accept.”

In the early days of the global epidemic, Darren along with Peggy Dawson, provided light touch massage for many people living with HIV and AIDS in Auckland. They created a quilt panel featuring large daisies, with each petal containing the name of someone they had worked with who had subsequently died.

Poignantly, the last two petals were left blank and only completed after Darren's death in 1993. They commemorate his partner Stephen Maxted who died in May 1993, and Darren himself who died four months later at the age of 32.

Circumstances at the time meant that there was no provision made for a headstone, and so Darren’s grave is marked with only a simple white wooden cross. Michael has been tending to the grave at Waikumete Cemetery for the last 3-decades, replacing the cross every few years.

The 31 October 2020 marks Darren’s 60th birthday. I said to Michael recently, what better time for the community to come together and erect a memorial headstone in honour of this remarkable early AIDS activist and educator.

This Givealittle page will run until Darren’s birthday (31 October) and the headstone is proposed to be installed and blessed to mark World AIDS Day (the date will be around late November/early December).

The headstone wording will be:

Darren Bruce Horn

31 October 1960 – 4 September 1993

AIDS Activist and Quilt Maker

Darren’s grave is located at Waikumete Cemetery, Catholic Lawn C, Row 6, Plot 26.

Darren's quilt panel can be viewed here: https://aidsquilt.org.nz/the-touch-panel/

The text reads: "For all those I have touched, loved and been with. You have all been great teachers in love, intimacy and dying. I have felt your pain, fears and vulnerabilities. All never forgotten, you are all one and special. Touched."