‘Factor VIII was a wonder drug

“We got handouts, literally, to keep us surviving through it, but we never lived again. There is a difference between living and surviving.

“We were so poor that we had to go cap in hand to get some money to pay someone to take Graham up north to see his parents for the last time.”

Graham deteriorated, and was unable to work from about 1991. He saw his younger brother, Anthony, also die from AIDS after catching HIV from Factor VIII.

“For his final two years he couldn’t work because he was so ill, in monstrous ways, unimaginable ways.

Book of remembrance

“He was disabled once, became able-bodied, and then became disabled all over again but worse. I think it compounded the horror. If you’re given something and it’s taken away from you, it’s a worse thing. Who wants to give away their toys? Nobody. It was like being at war in your own house. “

Graham died on December 19, 1993. Baroness Campbell returns every year, on the anniversary, to St Botolph’s church where there is a book of remembrance for haemophiliacs who were killed by the scandal. The book continues to get new entrants.

The baroness has been reluctant to get involved with the campaign, not wishing to be viewed as a victim of the scandal. She is defined and heralded for her indefatigable work for equality for all disabled people, but she was also widowed by a drug the NHS gave her husband.

She wants Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, a long-time advocate of speedy compensation and justice for what is known as the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history, to emerge from his “black hole” in the Treasury and make good on pledges to finally deliver justice.

Swift compensation and a full, earnest apology are her two wishes. Revenge is not on the agenda of the baroness. Recognition, however, is.

She speculates towards the end of our conversation that what happened to haemophiliacs, specifically the boys at the Treloar’s School and College for disabled children where dozens of boys were experimented on with Factor VIII against their will, would not have happened to able-bodied people.

“We are seen as people who are in need of care, who are tragic, who are victims, who are struggling, who are suffering from our disabilities. We are not seen as people who are important human beings.”

Anger is still there at your core

This disdain was compounded by decades of denial, delay and cover-up. Still, the Government has yet to pay compensation to victims.

The baroness wants the Government to not only apologise for its part in the deaths of thousands of innocent people, but to acknowledge the harm this did to families, spouses and children.

“We didn’t have Elton John. We didn’t have anybody as our cheerleader. And more than that, people tried to cover it up, that it was someone else’s fault,” she said.

“Women were also giving up a lot. Many people forget what it did to marriages. We just got married, but we didn’t have a marriage because we were too scared to enjoy the honeymoon years. A lot of us became nuns, not that we wanted to, but we thought it was the only way to keep safe.

“Women gave up their childbearing years and those that didn’t, were in danger of giving birth to infected children. Women were also giving up their careers, for example. I was shooting up in my career and then came to a stop. I lost five or six years of that time of your life where you are at the peak of your career. You had to give up a lot.

‘The apology has never really come’

She is speaking now, ahead of the Infected Blood Inquiry’s final report on May 20, to try to push the Government to finally, after four decades, deliver justice.

“I want everybody to be treated with financial respect and also given an apology. It has never really come.

“For me it is all about the apology and the financial settlement which will show they were wrong. For me, the most important thing is to give the bloody money to the living first and foremost. Don’t worry about me or anyone else, give them the money, give mine as well if it helps.”