Ivan

I'm in the middle of filming three seperate reports for a London based regional news program for the BBC. The second of the three has proved really interesting, not least because of the presenter. The item was about homosexual discrimination within big city work places, particularly the high earners in the prestigious financial sector of London called Canary Wharf. The director warned me the presenter was a little eccentric, he lives in Barcelona but was coming to London especially for the program. His name was Ivan Massow, and what I slowly discovered was how monumental his actions were during the break out of AIDS in the late 80s and the consequent victimisation of all homosexual men.

Because of the ignorance of the disease a lot of people assumed it was mostly spread by gay men. All over Britain people believed if you were gay you were most vulnerable to AIDS and therefore suffer death soon after. Suddenly life insurance was impossible to acquire if you were openly gay. With no life insurance, there's no mortgage, and you can't buy a house. All underwriters in the UK charged extortionate premiums for all homosexual men without any legal action made against them. One gay investment banker called Ivan Massow decided to quit his high-paid job and set up a small business that everyone in city circles laughed at so much he became a public joke and was ridiculed in all the tabloids at the time. He found a loophole in the system where he practically smuggled gay men in through certain underwriters enabling them to get mortgages at normal rates. As the papers laughed he made millions and millions of pounds.

That was where he got his fame, but I later found out he founded numerous charities that supported victims of various forms of discrimination. He was briefly the chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts until he publicly declared how fake the industry was. He influenced politicians because he was so outspoken.

It was quite odd to eat lunch with him during filming and talk about when he had lunch with Prince Charles. He was very down to earth, and not at all arrogant about his success and wealth. I think I read he never even wanted to be really successful. Jonathan Swift said "The wise man has money in his head but not in his heart." I'm more like Jackie Mason who said "I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something."