All of us at Terrence Higgins Trust are devastated to hear of the death of Simon Horvat-Marcovic.

I can’t say I knew him very well, but I knew him a little from our work together. I first met him in 2018 when we were both part of the service user involvement programme. We were invited to tour and give feedback on the new office at Cally Yard. Whilst I was new to the charity as a service user and volunteer, Simon had been active for quite a long time. I was immediately struck by his wit, insight and sense of humour. Simon had a long history of activism and I have had the privilege of learning a lot from him over the years since.

Simon volunteered with many HIV organisations, including - perhaps most famously - being the resident Santa Claus at the The Food Chain. Many in the HIV community will remember Simon walking around Victoria Park in full Santa costume in multiple years of the Positive East Red Run, to raise money for Food Chain, undeterred by his then reduced mobility and the freezing December weather.

He was also a Peer Mentor for Positively UK for many years, supported National AIDS Trust campaigns by sharing his experience, and helped to test the redesigned Aidsmap - the HIV information charity website. If you asked Simon for help, he would say yes before you finished the sentence. He did whatever he could to raise awareness and funds for all of these organisations.

He contributed his story to the amazing autobiographical book by his good friend (and our fellow Positive Voices speaker) Roland Chesters, ‘Ripples From the Edge of Life’ and was perhaps the book's most tireless promoter, online, as well as in person to anyone who would listen.

Simon joined the Positive Voices programme at Terrence Higgins Trust around the time I took over as manager. He worked with our Storytelling Coach to develop his key message and share his personal HIV story with passion and purpose. Health issues prevented him from completing the training first time around but he persevered and came back in the next training round to complete it. Hearing him sharing that story was an immense privilege.

He shared his personal experiences so generously, sure in his conviction that the only way to make progress on HIV was to break down the stigma and the only way to break the stigma was to share his story and make people understand and relate.

Outside of his HIV activism, he was a tireless campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and a veteran of many pride marches. In his local area, he was a school governor, chair of the Safer Neighbourhoods Panel as well as being a candidate for council on multiple occasions.

His enthusiasm to help those around him seemed unbounded. It is rare to find someone so selfless and civic-minded. Sadly, he was far too often failed by the support systems to which he himself contributed so selflessly, most notably when it came to his housing.

The last time I saw Simon in person was last October at the annual Barclays Gala for Terrence Higgins Trust, where he volunteered to manage the raffle. After multiple spells of ill health that prevented him from being as active as he would have liked, it was lovely to see him out and about, dressed to the nines in his tuxedo.

All of us in the Positive Voices team were saddened to hear him share of his declining health and lung cancer diagnosis in one of our team calls. I don’t think any of us expected to lose him so soon.

Simon will be greatly missed. His boundless enthusiasm and selflessness is an example that will stay with many of us for a long time to come.

Eugene