Work has started on the installation of the Brighton Aids Memorial in New Steine Gardens. Millimetre the company installing the memorial have started to dig the foundations which will be unveiled on October 9.

The original idea for a permanent Aids Memorial was floated by Councillor Paul Elgood in 2006. A petition with thousands of signatures was gathered and delivered to the City Council in 2007.

In 2008 after a public competition, Romany Mark Bruce's proposed sculpture of two androgynous figures reaching for the heavens was judged the favourite proposal to proceed with to commissioning stage.

Romany finished work on the sculpture in late 2008, after which the memorial was delivered to the Morris Singer Foundry in Braintree, Essex where it has been cast in bronze.

The memorial will be unveiled at 2.30pm on Friday October 9, in New Steine Gardens.

In the evening at 7.30pm,  Brighton's three gay choirs will share the same stage for the first time ever in a concert called 'You'll Never Walk Alone'  at St Mary's Church, St James Street, Kemp Town.

The concert will be followed by a candlelit vigil beside the new Aids Memorial in New Steine, and the reading of the names of those in Brighton and Hove lost to HIV/Aids.

If you want to have the name read of someone in Brighton and Hove you lost to HIV/Aids go to: www.realbrighton.com

Or you can fill in the post cards available in most commercial scene venues and either hand them in at Prowler, 112-113 St James's Street, Brighton or return to the address on the post card.