HAVING spent every spare moment of her young life caring for her father, 17-year-old Fiona Murray felt utterly lost when he finally succumbed to the Aids virus earlier this year.
She had been tending his every need since she was eight years old, responsible for the housework, shopping and making sure he was able to follow his complex medical regime.
She says: "My dad was my world. I spent such a lot of time caring for him
, so when he was taken away from me it was very hard."
Peter Murray was in his late-20s when he fell in love with Fiona's mother, Heather. Both were heavily involved in Edinburgh's prolific drug-taking scene of the time, and the couple met through mutual friends.
It was the tail end of the 1980s when HIV was rife among the intravenous drug users in the Capital who thought nothing of the dangers of sharing needles.
"I don't know much about how they became infected with HIV, but I do know that it was probably through injecting drugs," says Fiona. "It's not something we spoke about."
The youngster lost her mum when she was only five. Although Fiona, of Leith, has few memories of Heather, she recalls moments of tenderness when her mother would sing nursery rhymes to her when she visited the hospital.
Heather's death at only 32 was an event that had a profound impact on Peter who, when faced with the burden of looking after a young child, decided to turn his life around.
Indeed, it was another three years before Fiona, who does not carry the HIV virus, realised that her father had the same illness that had killed her mother.
But despite his best efforts at improving his fitness - he took up cycling and yoga - colds knocked him out for weeks at a time, and it was during these times that it would fall to his daughter to make sure he was comfortable.
Although she was her father's primary carer, Fiona was able to turn to workers at the Waverley Care Solas Support Centre at Abbeyhill.
For the last 16 years, the centre has been working with children between the ages of four and 16 whose lives are affected by HIV - the virus that leads to Aids.
The majority of these youngsters are free of HIV but new funding has just become available to help children in the Lothians who have contracted the virus. Determined to give something back to the project, Fiona has recently started to help supervise some of the groups.
Describing herself as an insecure and nervous person, she has also found it within herself to give talks at the centre on living with HIV and Aids.
"There need to be more people to shout about HIV because it isn't a label. Just because you have it, you are still a person," she says.
But while Fiona wants to speak out about her experiences, she remains frightened that there may be repercussions.
Indeed, throughout her school years, she only revealed the true nature of her father's illness to those closest to her.
"I think other kids at school knew there was something wrong but they didn't know what it was," she says.
It was just after Fiona started secondary school that her father's condition took a turn for the worse and he was diagnosed with Aids.
Fiona says: "The doctors put him on the combination anti-retroviral therapy. He took about 28 tablets a day and it was my job to make sure he took the right tablet at the right time."
Despite his illness, Peter desperately wanted to remain at home,
but in January this year he was taken to the Western General Hospital after Fiona became so worried that she called NHS 24.
Just before he slipped into unconsciousness, Peter whispered to his daughter: "Love you Fi, sweet dreams, see you in the morning." He died the following day, aged 48.
• Names and some personal details have been changed.
HELPING THE WHOLE FAMILY TO COPE
MORE than 2000 people in the Lothians are known to have been infected with HIV since records began in the early 1980s. Since then there have been 560 Aids cases.
For the past 16 years, the Waverley Care Solas Support Centre at Abbeyhill has been supporting children whose parents have contracted HIV and Aids.
Not all the children who attend the project know their parents are ill, and workers aim to build up a relationship with the family. This means that when parents are ready to tell their children about their illness, the whole family can get support.
"We don't just talk about issues surrounding HIV and Aids," says children and young people's worker Nichola Frith. "We also offer somewhere children can come and focus on something different, something positive."
Children are encouraged to express themselves through art and drama projects and are also offered individual support if they need it.
A grant of almost £60,000 has been awarded to the project by the BBC Children In Need appeal, which will see support work established for the 20 children in the east of Scotland who are known to carry the HIV virus.
For more information about the work of Waverley Care, go to
www.waverleycare.org