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Well, I grew up in Sydney. Well, I was born in Victoria, but, um, went to Sydney when I was about 10 to live with my grandparents. And that didn't really go too well. So by the time I was 12 or nearly 13, not quite 13, um, I was living in King's Cross in Sydney. And is this, what decade is this? This is the late fifties, early sixties. Can you paint a picture for me what the, the, the [00:00:30] cross was like in the fifties and sixties? Oh, it was pretty vibrant. Um, you know, there was the odd, odd machine gunning of people in half in the main street and, and, um, sort of turf wars, I guess. But, but for trans people it was exciting. It was terrifying. It was the only place that we could really go and congregate and be with other people like [00:01:00] ourselves and, and I don't know how, um, people seem to be able to, to be like moths to a magnet. When they don't know anything about it, but, but that's where we're all gravitated to and it's very similar here in Wellington Back in those days people gravitated to Wellington and how and how and that comes about I really don't know, but it's like an internal magnet or something that you know You must hear a little [00:01:30] snippet here a little snippet there and that's that's the place you go if you like that The cross was, was exciting, but, but, uh, would have been great if the police weren't so active. And, and of course we were fair game being in drag. Um, even gay, gay, gay guys were, you know, I mean, I don't need to talk about New South Wales or Sydney and, and the legendary police murders and all those sorts of things. But that, that was all happening at that time, lots of [00:02:00] corruption, um, on the, on the side of the police. Um, and they had a law. Which is probably the one that affected any trans people, or, we didn't call ourselves trans in those days, that, that hadn't been, even been invented, we just called ourselves drag queens. Um, the terminology for trans and transgender and transsexual, that all came sort of later down the track. Um, [00:02:30] The lawmakers had made a law called consorting. If a police car was driving past and they saw you in the street, they would lean out the window and just go put their finger up and point at you. And the consorting law was if two known criminals or people of ill repute or whatever their target was, were seen talking to each other, they were, that was consorting. And it was a three strikes and you're out. Act. [00:03:00] So on the third time they saw you, they arrested you and the charge was offensive behavior. It wasn't consorting. It was offensive behavior. It was, it was obviously offensive for two drag queens to talk to each other or, you know, and it was a way of the police clearing the streets, I guess. Um, so, so on your third time you'd be arrested, charged with offensive behavior. You'd go to court, you'd be fined 10 pounds or five, five pounds. Five [00:03:30] pounds or 10 days in prison. And once you had, I can't remember whether it was three offensive behavior charges or five, but I think it could have been three. Then you got an automatic three months in prison. Uh, And it was pretty bloody tough because that's what happened, you know, and we all had to live like that and sort of dodging the cops whenever you could, but you [00:04:00] never could. I mean, they always got you. So for the cops was Was it just, I mean, was it sport for them? Oh, absolute sport. There was, there was one, um, cop in Sydney by the name of Bumper Farrell who was very notorious and, and, um, quite famous in the end. Um, he, he used to do it for sport and he, and he'd round up all the queens and the hookers and, um, put them up at the top of, [00:04:30] um, William Street. Which is a big hill, goes right down. And, um, he'd say, if you can get to the traffic lights down by Bourke Street, then I'll let you go. If you don't, you're back in the van and you're busted. You know, it was all sport. It was all sport. Um, sport and corruption. If you had some money on you, you could pay them and you could get out of it. They'd take your money, but, you know. It wasn't a nice way to have to live. No, I mean, for you as a young trans person, [00:05:00] I mean, how did that impact you? Oh, I don't know. I've always been a bit of a lateral thinker, so I was always trying to think of ways to get out of shit. It affected people in the way that, if you were trans, that was some sort of built in inherent thing that you were, you had to be, so you couldn't go out and just say, dress as [00:05:30] a guy and have a normal job, because that wasn't in your psyche, so that wasn't, I guess it was an option for some, but, but, you know, and we hear about these people that say, Okay. I'm 65 years old now and I, I was a woman trapped in a man's body and all that sort of bullshit. Um, it wasn't an option for us, um, and, and my peers were all the same. We were, we were drag queens. That was, that was the end, end of it all. But you [00:06:00] couldn't go to school, um, Because you'd be arrested. School would ring the police. You couldn't even go to a doctor. I had a doctor before I was in drag. I had a gay doctor. Chris Laidlaw, his name was. Nothing to do with our Chris Laidlaw. That was his name. And fine as a doctor when I wasn't in drag, the minute I got into drag, Rang the police. You know, got a drag queen [00:06:30] here. This was a gay guy. And so like, what would he expect? So the two communities didn't, didn't really mix in those days. There was the odd ones on the fringes of each, but, but as a whole. Gay guys did not mix with drag queens back in those days because they'd be sprung. And they didn't want their cover blown because gay guys were probably more susceptible to being arrested and beaten than we were. But, you know, after a few years of that I got sick [00:07:00] of it. Well, we all did. Um, we'd met Carmen, who was, she'd been, um, in Auckland, got into some trouble, fled to Sydney. So it was the other way around. Um, and We were all at Carmen's place one day and the police raided her flat actually. It was just behind the Alamein Fountain. It was a place called the Chevrolet's Private Hotel. And, um, the cops are coming in one door, we're all [00:07:30] running out the back door. And we'd just had the conversation ten minutes before. There was myself, um, Gina Lamour and Natalie Parker. Um, about Carmen was going back to New Zealand. She wanted to get back. Um. And that's where we should go, you didn't need a passport to come to New Zealand in those days, you just paid your plane fare and got on the plane in effect. And um, anyway, the flat got raided and, and, um, Carmen took off out one door, we, we were off out the next and we [00:08:00] decided that was it, we were going the next day and we all sort of split up and, and um, Gina and Natalie ended up going to Wellington. And I ballsed it up. I got it wrong. I went to Auckland. Um, and I'd asked a friend, you know, where was the best place in New Zealand to go and she said Auckland, Auckland. So I ended up getting a plane to Auckland. So I was in Auckland for probably a year before I got to Wellington. And they were, they're already down here. I [00:08:30] just want to backtrack just a wee bit. And I should just also put on, on, on tape that we are under the flight path of the helicopters that go to the hospital. And so that's why the helicopter was flying over. But when, can you remember the first time you met Carmen? Yes, I met Carmen in the Annex nightclub in Sydney in Darlinghurst Road. It was, um, There was a midnight, midnight movie theatre, picture theatre in the middle of [00:09:00] Darlinghurst Road. And the Annex Club was a hidden gay club, it was like a speakeasy from the Prohibition days. Um, you bought a special ticket, and it was, I think it was two shillings or something. It was quite a lot of money in those days to get in. And um, you gave the usher the ticket and they walked you right up the back of this theatre, up the, up the ramp, and you went right up to the very back row. Then you went along to the left, and you went into a door, which was [00:09:30] then closed into a dark room, um, and it was soundproofed, and then another door was opened, and that was the little club, and there was about 50 or 60 people in there at any time. Um, and I was sitting in there, uh, with some friends talking, and, and, um, This amazing looking guy walked in, and it was Carmen. Carmen was working as a waiter at the Chevron Hilton Hotel at the time, [00:10:00] and I should say he, at that stage, had, um, A waistcoat, a brocade, waste waistcoat, um, an umbrella which he used as a walking stick. Um, immaculately dressed and stunning striking, very striking looking person. I said, who's that? And they said, well, that's Trevor. He's from New Zealand. He's a Maori. I said, what's a Maori? Are they from New Zealand? I said, I want one . [00:10:30] I think that was my. When I fell in love with the marry race. Um, and later on that night, Carmen and I caught up. Um, Carmen, by that time had got into drag and, and, um, you can do it. So can I love. Um, and that was, that was where we started. We, we were friends from that first day. Um, we sort of clicked and that's how that all started. And that was about 1958, [00:11:00] I guess, 57, 58. So could you live full time in drag? Or did you have to do that where you would like have a waiting job and then you would do drag at night? No, no, Carmen did. Um, but Carmen had been, Carmen was eight years older than us. Had come from Tamranui. Um, had been in the army. Had been conscripted, I think, into the army. Um, Had sort of lived a bit, you know, quite a bit more [00:11:30] than we had, was a little bit more worldly wise. Um, and was sort of half and half. We're, we're, we all sort of, in that original lot of us, and there was Carlotta and, and a lot of those old lay girls. Girls, we're all the same age, we're all, you know, 78, 79, um, now, um, we all sort of started out at the same time, really, in the Jewel Box, which was, this is, the Jewel Box was the [00:12:00] first drag show club in Sydney, and that was back towards the Alamein Fountain from the Midnight Movie Theatre, and right opposite where Lay Girls was built. Lay Girls hadn't been built at that stage. Um, and that was about a year after the Jewelbox was running that Sammy Lee and Reg Boom, who were the two entrepreneurs that started Lay Girls, must have thought there was a dollar in it and, and they built the, um, what became Lay [00:12:30] Girls and became very famous. And they really picked the best queens from the Jewelbox and around the place, you know, the top. Top ones that were really great, um, Carlotta and all that lot, um, and they did the show there. But you know, they used to get chased by the police too. They'd have to get dressed as boys to leave the club. And if they did go and drag, they'd run the gauntlet. The cops would be parked outside waiting to see who they could grab. So, [00:13:00] um, but it was still exciting. It was, there was a real sense of community. We all had each other's backs and, you know, it was the same here in the early days too. Can you recall, were there any, um, older queens that you, you kind of looked up to or? There was, there was a couple. Um, there was one, um, Karen Chant, who's still alive in Sydney. She's, she's got to be in her nineties now. Um, Shara, I don't know whether [00:13:30] she's Dead or alive. I lost touch there years ago. Um, there were a few, and they were all named after movie stars back in those days. There was Lana Turner and, you know. So there was a generation before us that were even more hidden. But, but were really guys who worked as guys and got into drag rather than, although Karen, Karen Chutt was full time eventually. Um. [00:14:00] She wasn't when I knew her, but, um, she is still now. Um, so there was a generation before which were even a bit more hidden. And, closety. And then I think generations before that it was probably easier for them. So, in what way? Well, technology takes over things, doesn't it? When there's no technology, I mean, we see old photos pop up every now and then on the internet of, you [00:14:30] know, people in drag in the 1800s and all that, and it doesn't look like it was a big issue then, for them. Do you think, um, around the 40s and maybe a bit earlier that it was a bit more conservative? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I was pretty conservative when I was a kid. Especially Australia. It was I won't make that comment. I don't have [00:15:00] particularly fond memories of Australia and growing up there. So, you know. For me, life started when I got to Auckland. How, how was New Zealand sold to you? What, uh, how was it painted? Well, it wasn't, it was just I think, I think it was, for me, I had this dream, it was full of guys that looked like Trevor. Ha! And, and it was certainly freer and easier. There were no laws. It wasn't against the law to be in drag in New Zealand. That [00:15:30] was the big catch all for us. Um, we could come and we could live our lives without that, having that hanging over your head and being thrown in jail every time you were caught. Um, cause I got, I was the youngest person ever to be put in Long Bay Jail in Australia. Cause I lied about my li I lied about my age, so I ended up in Long Bay Jail. What age? Oh, 14. And, I mean, it did, it didn't. Didn't [00:16:00] harm me, but, you know, shouldn't have happened. Um, and then they did find out my age and they stuck me in a home for a wee while, but I escaped from there and, um, So tell me, what was it like? What were your first impressions when you arrived in Auckland? What, what was it like? Well, I, I arrived in Auckland, I, I got out of drag to go to do the fly, flight, but I had bleach blonde hair with pink tints in it. [00:16:30] And I got on an old, I think it was a Vickers Viscount, four, it was four engines on the plane, I remember that, and it took forever to get here. I didn't know where Carmen was or where, where my other friends were, Gina and Natalie. Um, I got to Auckland. I had five pounds. I'd sold things I owned and the day before to, to get the plane ticket and I can't remember how much, I think it was about 40 pounds or something. It wasn't that much, but it was a lot of money back in those [00:17:00] days. And I had five pounds left and I remember I got a bus from the airport. Might have been even been an airport bus, but I ended up in Queen Street, and I was holy crap What do I do? And I was absolutely petrified But getting off the plane It was really interesting because I must have looked a hell of a sight for all the straight people, you know business people traveling in there and, and the captain of the [00:17:30] plane came off at the same time and they handed you, they gave you these souvenir prints, Raymond Ching prints. And, and everyone in first class or something got one of these prints. I don't think I was in first class, but anyway, he gave me two of them, uh, and said, welcome to New Zealand. And I thought, oh gosh, this is friendly. Um. So anyway, I got into town and I went to a phone box and I found Kangaroo Hotel. And I thought, Oh my God, it sounds like [00:18:00] Australia. So I went and it was in Upper Queen Street and it got renamed as the Rembrandt Hotel, which was best described as probably Auckland's number one DOS house. Um, I got a room there and I think it might have been a pound for the week or something. And I went out and I bought some hair dye, um, dyed my hair, um, I bought a pair of shorts and some socks and I don't know whether I bought shoes or not, but I bought a shirt and I went down Queen Street and I [00:18:30] got a job in Keen's for Jeans, uh, behind the counter. Um, and I worked there for about probably six or eight months. Maybe nearly a year. Um, and sort of got myself reasonably established in Auckland. I remember the first week, I had no money left after buying the hair dye. So I starved for the first bloody week. I was so hungry, till I got paid. So, what year was this? That was 62. 1962, and what age? [00:19:00] Late 62, nearly into 63. And what age would you have been? I was born in 44, how old was I, 44, um, 18, 18, 19, yeah. And how was it to meet people? Well you know how gays meet people, back in those days. Um, cause I was out of drag for a year, a good year. Um, and I had to, I knew I had to sort of establish myself. I had to get [00:19:30] something behind me to survive. Um. And it took me probably nearly a year before I found Carmen. Um, she'd been in Auckland the whole year, but communication, we didn't have cell phones or anything like that. It was all just word of mouth. And, and I'd met a few gay people and we, we were friends. And, and then, um, tiny Tina, Pat Crow, who used to live in Wellington, um, Arrived over here [00:20:00] and he was in Auckland first, managing a strip club. Um, we sort of formed, you know, there was a little community of us up there, um, doing the beats and all that, you know, all the usual carry on. But it's interesting, um, I just want to, um, just unpack that just a wee bit because nowadays Um, it, it is quite different, so, so, how, how Well, you pick up your cell phone and go on the ride. I mean, back in the, back in the early 60s, how, like, literally, how did you meet people? Well, you hung [00:20:30] around parks or places that gays were known to haunt. Um, I'm not going to state the obvious for the record, but, um, that, that was what it was. That was, that was the, um, olden times equivalent to Grindr, was doing the beat. Um, the ferry buildings in bottom of Queen Street was a favourite haunt. There were, there were bars, there was, there was the Lily Pond, um, which was what was at the Great Northern Hotel in [00:21:00] Wellington. Um. You're stirring my memory banks here, I'm, ha ha ha. Um, and, and, I ended up, someone said to me, Oh, Carmen's working up in Grace, Grace Avenue. So, I trotted up there one night and I found her. She was, she was standing behind a tree. Um, And I found her and then we sort of all reconnected and you know, all that carry on and she said she was going to [00:21:30] Wellington and I, and Patsy, a friend of ours who you met last time had just opened a club in Wellington, a drag club, Nicole was already there working, um, and They'd opened it up as a drag show. Um, by the time I got there, the drag show had finished and they'd turned it into a strip club. And I got the job compairing. So, so, um, most of the drag queens were [00:22:00] gone. It wasn't advertised as a drag show though. Shit, I just buggered your microphone, didn't I? No, it's good. Oh, just, um, He loves his microphone. Uh, and, and so Carmen came down and, and was doing her thing down here and I came down, we started doing the strip club at the Purple Onion and then I [00:22:30] Through my night time earnings, I opened a pet shop in Cuba Street, um, next to the Lotus Restaurant, which is just about four doors from Scott and Mel's bar. And what was your pet shop called? Exotic Aquariums. And what did it have in it? We had, we sold pets and plants, um, we sold birds, goldfish, tropical fish, um, pet foods, dog leads, all that, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, and I [00:23:00] used to do a lot of window dressing at night because it was warmer inside than out. And in what years did you have that business? That was, that was the first thing I did when I went to Wellington was about 64. Did you have like a monkey in there? Yeah, that was the main attraction at the pet shop, the masturbating monkey. I always wanted a [00:23:30] monkey and I ended up when I, Was running the zoo. I had lots of monkeys and lots of pet monkeys But I always I was always loved those things. Um, I bought this monkey. It was a bonnet macaque from a little private zoo in in upper hut that was closing down and I Used to terrorize taxi drivers trying to get Put the monkey in the back of a taxi to drive, so they wouldn't take it. Anyway, the [00:24:00] monkey, the monkey had a terrible habit. Um, he used to sit in the shop, and people, it was a great attraction, and it was, and I did quite well with the monkey. But, um, the monkey had a habit of grabbing ladies handbags when they walked in the shop, and masturbating into them, and then giving them back their handbags. And it got to be quite legendary. I used to take it to the gay bar, the tavern bar, after work sometimes, and he really liked vodka and orange, and he'd run along the bar and just grab [00:24:30] anyone's vodka and orange. And snarl at them. It was a bit legendary. I ended up, um, I sold it to, um, the people at the Union Hotel in Otaki and it lived there for a long time. I think it eventually died, but yeah. That's one of many monkeys I had over the years. I just want to take you back to Passy, Passy Daniels. [00:25:00] Yeah. Did you know Passy before coming to Wellington? Yes, Passy was in Sydney, um, and he worked for a few weeks at Lay Girls. Um, and he did, he was a tram driver, um, in Sydney, he was married, um, he was a rock and roll champion dancer, um, him and his wife, Renita, um, but he did these drag numbers, um, A Foggy Day in London Town and he [00:25:30] came on stage with a plastic raincoat and an umbrella and he mimed this song, A Foggy Day in London Town. I don't know how he wrangled his way into there to doing that, but, um, he did. And that was, that was when we first met Passy, was before we'd ever come here. And then of course they were set up in the Purple Onion, um, which became famous and notorious all rolled into one word. Um, you know, it was sort of Well, it wasn't the first strip club in Wellington. [00:26:00] Um, a guy called Wally Martin, um, and Manuel Papadopoulos started the first club in Wellington in one of Manuel's restaurants in, um, Manor Street. Is it Manor Street? The one where McDonald's is now. Oh, yes, yes. Is that Manor Street? Uh, it is on the Victoria Manor Street. Yeah, yeah, down there. Um, uh, it was the El Matador restaurant, I think. The El Matador was And the El Dorado was opposite the door of the [00:26:30] Bistro, the Royal Oak Hotel, so it was either, either the El Dorado or the El Matador, got them mixed up, um, but they were all owned by the Papadopoulos. And so that was the first strip club? That was the first strip show in Wellington, that was. What kind of year would that be, do you think? Um, well it had to be, it had to be 1960, it was a year before I got to Wellington. It was a year before I got to Wellington, because that was how Nicole got to Wellington and then [00:27:00] Patsy came along and opened up and grabbed those girls when that all fell through. Wally Martin was an entrepreneur, he was the son of a judge, um, what was his name, Crutchley, William, Bill Crutchley was, was his real name. William Crutchley, and his father was William Crutchley, senior magistrate. Um, Ha! Wally, Wally had several places in Wellington. He sort of opened and closed them with, um, great [00:27:30] frequency. But he had the Psychedelic Inn up in Marjory Bank Street. And then he started a newspaper. A little Wellington newspaper for all the nightlife people. Um, and that was That was, and then he had a strip club, um, in Kerber Street, which was probably two doors from Scott and Mel's. And the newspaper was run upstairs, the strip club was upstairs too, and the newspaper was downstairs I think, I can't remember the name [00:28:00] of the paper though. So did you ever perform at, um, Lake Earl's or with Patsy? No, no. I did with Patsy at the Purple Onion, I did, I comped. For about probably 12 months. And what would that, what, what does comparing mean? What, what, well, it was introducing the acts and all the rest of it. Um, whatever you wanted to do, really, there was no format to that show. Can you describe, um, describe the act? I was never [00:28:30] very, very. Um, I wasn't a stage queen by any means, it was just something that I did because I had to make a living, get some money somehow, and I liked using the doorway of his club because it was quite good to, you know, do other business. Um, consulting business. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Um. Um. Yeah, I, I, I was never, I like to own the club rather than be in the show, [00:29:00] where, where, and of course the people that owned the club always made the money and the people in the show never, never got anything. So there was a downside to being the show girl. And I think Carmen worked that one out far too late in life. Um, really for herself. Chrissie worked it out right at the start. Um, and worked it well. She wasn't the show girl. Um, but Carmen was and it was all about the show. So can you [00:29:30] describe some of the acts that happened at the Purple Onion? Pretty amateurish. Um, I mean, sometimes any poor, any poor bint that was, that dared put her head through the door got thrown on the stage. It was the same as Papadopoulos Over the Road. Um, the Club Exotic, I mean, if you [00:30:00] put your head in the door, they'd throw you on the stage. Patsy sat at the door taking the money. It was the funniest thing out. Um, he had a little two. Headed record player there, he did the sound and the music. And um, he had, had a lady, Rosie, used to do the announcing. Um, and he'd be taking the money, and, and people would look in the door and he'd go, Packed, love, packed, [00:30:30] packed! He was always packed, even if it was only one person that was packed. Um, they did a thing called Artarama. Um, which was hilarious. Um, and remember in those days girls had to wear pasties and, and there was a few laws around, around that stuff. So, but I mean, the onion deteriorated pretty quickly, um, into, into something that wasn't particularly. Great, at the end, [00:31:00] um, Passy was out of it by then, I think, and he had opened another strip club in, just off Manor Street, um, was it Herbert Street? And the Tate a Tate, it used to be the Tate a Tate Coffee Lounge, um, owned by June Griffin. And Pasi and a friend of his, Warwick, took that over and had a strip club in there for a while. I think it was called the Perfume Garden. And, am I right in [00:31:30] thinking that, did, did Carmen perform at the Purple Island? No. No? Never. Even though we're told she did. And that she made toasted sandwiches there and coffees and I don't want to get into that territory. Well, let's, let's talk about the, um, things like the tete a tete, um, because The coffee lounge culture in Wellington was large at that time, wasn't it? Oh, it was incredible. Yeah. But the Tate of Tate was one of the originals. There was [00:32:00] the Mont Marie, there was Susie's, um, of course the El Matador and the El Dorado and, oh, there was another restaurant that I used to absolutely love down off, um, down off Willis Street, um, it was some sort of Hungarian restaurant, um. That was really, for a lot of us, that was all we could do, was that type of work. It was either [00:32:30] nightclubs or coffee bars, or, you know, the Sorrento was going, or the Sunset Strip was going when, when I got to Wellington. Um, Chrissie was No, she hadn't started, had she started there? She was still working on the wharf, but I think she might have been doing the sunset at night at that point, um, working there. And where was the sunset? That was in Gusney Street. It's [00:33:00] now a little park. Okay, is it Glover Park or? Don't know what it's called. But it's just by Cuba Street slash? To the left. Yeah, yeah, um, and it was a old two story sort of building was next to an old private hotel that's still there. Oh yes. Yeah, and that was a brothel back in the early, early days. Mar Hallam owned that. Um, and she owned one in Courtney Place. Um, the sunset was divided into [00:33:30] two parts. The original sunset, because there were two sunset strips. So the original sunset was just, was divided into two parts. It was heaven and hell. And all the, all the trannies and queens and seamen and You know, assorted sundry fag hags and god knows what all hung around on heaven and on hell was all the sort of gangsters and hoods and would be hut boys and you know, things like that. And it was run by the Coolman family. [00:34:00] And, um, John Coleman and, and his younger sister, Linda and their mother, old Mrs. Coleman, she, she ran these clubs. Um, and they had, then they opened up the powder puff, which we called the powder puff. Um, so we alternated between, between those two. Most of us alternated between those two clubs. They were the first two big ones. So that was the Sunset and, and the Powderpuff. [00:34:30] And where was the Powderpuff? Down where the library is now, um, in Victoria Street. And the Powderpuff, upstairs became the balcony. Carmen's balcony later on. Um, Carmen had her club but we didn't frequent Carmen's club. And I had a coffee bar at the same time as well, Jackies and Willis Street, next to the Grand Hotel. Um, I catered more for, um, What did I cater for? Quite a lot of trans, [00:35:00] mainly Maori trans, and mongrel mob members, um, well, anyone that wanted to come in and behave themselves, really. But, but it wasn't strictly gay, it wasn't straight, it was Carmen was pretty much strictly business people. She didn't cater for a gay crowd at all. You know, the odd gay ones would go in there. But it was all drag queen waitresses and glamour and she had that business [00:35:30] crowd. I had my crowd. The Sunset had its crowd, which was, you know, the hut boys and the ship girls and street queens and, you know. And then Chrissy, I'm getting a bit disjointed because it's hard to put things into time frames, but Chrissy and I had two businesses together. Uh, we ended up, um, getting the me coffee lounge out in the, in lower heart and we, [00:36:00] we ran that for about a year until there was gang war in the main street of lower heart over turf wars and, and they pretty much trashed lower heart, so we decided to have a hasty retreat there. Where was the mixer car? In, um, one street back off the main street in lower hud. It was behind Smith and Smith Glass. And poor old Smith and Smith Glass suffered badly because every fucking glass window in the place got smashed one night and that was the end of the [00:36:30] Mexicali anyway. Um, ha ha ha, it was fun while it lasted that one. Um, and then we opened the Doodle Inn, which was the first topless restaurant in New Zealand. That was right opposite the main doors of Parliament, um, much to the, Chagrin of a few MPs. So, would that be where, um, the back, back bench of pub is now? Um, probably next door, two doors up. It's, the building's gone, I, [00:37:00] I had a look a while ago. Um, it was, I had quite, quite a few re, different restaurants I took over. When places went broke, I'd go in and take them over and run them for a while. Run them more into the ground probably. But, I had the Golden Egg up on Willis Street. Um, it only had about six months to go and they were pulling it down and I had it for that six months and we did Maori, Maori food in that one. It did quite well there. All the girls used to come after [00:37:30] work and, you know, six fish and ten eggs and they're all dead now. You've got to wonder why. The cholesterol levels must have been incredible. Um, you know, a big plate of pork bones and puha and then fish and, fish and twelve eggs and you know. I'll not think about it. Um, but anyway, Chris and I opened the Doodle Inn. It was the first topless restaurant in Wellington. And, um It belonged to an old Hungarian guy who had a [00:38:00] restaurant in Courtney Place and it had closed down. He had managers in there or something, it didn't work out. It was a two story place, upstairs and downstairs. The kitchen and dumb waiter were all downstairs and the little entrance was downstairs. And then the dining room upstairs. Anyway, the, the We sort of had this idea of a topless restaurant and didn't know whether we'd get away with it or not. But, um, the Hungarian man had a booking for [00:38:30] the round table association and the round table association wasn't the business round table. It was the clerical round table. So we had all these. Priests and bishops and Church of England archbishops or whatever they were there and we decided and and the Press had already got wind that we're opening a topless restaurant We'd already painted this I had [00:39:00] the sign painted the doodle in on the front window which sort of was a bit risque in those days, I guess and We thought what the hell are we going to do and we got word that the police were going to come and raid it and You know charge us with indecent acts and things and I had these two waitresses jacked up one of them still lives in Wellington And she had the biggest biggest set of boobs you've ever seen in your life. She was gorgeous looking and I [00:39:30] won't say her name She's pretty well connected. We decided to introduce the topless waitresses on that night when the Round Table had their thing because we thought if they're going to arrest us, they're going to arrest half of the leading clergy in Wellington. That's probably not going to happen. So we rang up the TV people and the radio station and they're all there behind us. Anyway, [00:40:00] these poor guys didn't have a clue what was about to happen. I'll call her Mary. Mary had a big tray. Piled up with meals and the meal was breast of chicken. We thought breast of chicken was going to be appropriate. And in, in, she was holding this tray. She had this tiny little mini skirt, nothing on top. Um, except she had one breast in the middle of. Those two plates and one breast in the middle of those two plates and [00:40:30] up she dropped up the stairs and started putting their meals out with the straightest face you've ever seen and these poor guys were just And the, and the cameras and the radio people were right behind them asking them for comment And what could they do but just join in on the joke, you know, and we never got um, we didn't get arrested. We never got We never got a visit from the cops, but about three, we had lots and lots of [00:41:00] members of parliament, office workers, used to come in for a bit of a perv on the girls, but about four months later it mysteriously caught fire in the middle of the night and burnt down. I think Maura Bob Muldoon had something to do with that. He didn't like the idea of it, but we had lots of MPs sneak in, and we had no money when we were doing this either. So what, what used to happen, it was 10 shillings to get in, and [00:41:30] we opened at four o'clock, and by about four, five thirty, six o'clock, we were finished, we were done. Um, because there were no office workers left in town, and what they used to do, they'd come in in their raincoat and pull their coats up and they'd come in and they'd pay their ten shillings and go upstairs and sit in a corner, and we only had two things on the menu was steak or fish, so someone would come in and they'd order, we loved it when they ordered steak, because they never ate it, so we could recycle a piece of steak about six times during the [00:42:00] night. And if they ordered fish, Chrissie would run into the fish and shop shop next door and order a piece of fish and half a And I'd run up to the, to the, to the, cause we didn't have any money when we got there that night, you know, and so we had to buy the ingredients. I'd run up to the greengrocers just up the road and get a tomato and a lettuce. And we always had a bottle of mayonnaise. And we'd serve the meal. The meals always looked quite good. But they'd take one bite, the fish was buggered, you couldn't [00:42:30] recycle battered fish, but steak, you just trimmed her up and sent it up to the next one, and there'd be another little bit out of it, you'd slice out of it, and you'd send it back up again. And we did quite well doing that. And then we'd close up and we'd be off. She was working at the Stunset Strip as well at the time, I think. Um, Chris had a huge work ethic. She was the one with the work ethic. She didn't care whether she was washing someone's [00:43:00] dishes or what, as long as she was working. And you mentioned earlier that she, what, originally started on the wharves? Yeah. What was she doing? Cooking. Yeah. Her mother was a caterer. Um, they were, they were all cooks and, you know, cooks and musicians in that family. Um, but yeah, Chris Stardust, that was when I first met Chris, was at the Royal Oak Hotel at the Bistro Bar, um, and she wasn't a drag, she was, well, sort of, but, um, she had bleach blonde white hair, [00:43:30] she was very, very good looking when she was young, Chris, um, she had bleach blonde white hair, she had, um, tight, black tights, um, A jacket of some sort and a little Gladstone bag on her arm. She always carried this f ing Gladstone bag. I don't know what was in it. But she held court in the Bistro Bar. Do you know what that is or what it was? Tell me, tell me. Bistro Bar was the back bar of the Royal Oak Hotel. And the Royal Oak [00:44:00] Hotel had two or three bars. Um, the front bar was called the Tavern Bar. That was a gay bar. And that was run by two guys, Imre, Claude and Imre. For many years, Emery Toft, I don't know what Claude's name was, um, Emery was Hungarian and Claude was a Pom anyway. But the back bar was run by a guy called Bernie, who was very into whips and bondage, I believed. But anyway, big guy. The back bar probably seated [00:44:30] conservatively five, six hundred people. It was huge, and it went the whole You know that Royal Oak block down to Dixon Park? Well it went just about right to Dixon Park. There was a couple little takeaways. Just at the end, but that bar covered that whole whole area. Um, it was ginormous And there was one section where all the ship girls drank that did the Japanese ships there was another section where all the drag [00:45:00] queens were another section where all the criminals were There were no real drug dealers in those days. So this is all pre sort of Pre drugs, pre dope, and, um, I guess there was a little bit around, but, but nothing that we ever saw, um, I think the drug of choice in those days was people took pills, and then LSD came on the scene, and then sort of marijuana and stuff, so, So we missed, my, my generation missed all that. We didn't, [00:45:30] we didn't do that. We were good. Um, but, Chris. Chris was there every night, um, with her group, and it was quite a big group, and she ran that group. She was the head of the table. She was just the natural. the natural head of the table. And if anyone caused any trouble, my God, she, you know, she'd shut it down so fast. It wasn't funny. And she, she always had that ability. She had a pretty good left hook. [00:46:00] Now you've mentioned yourself, but also Chris and Carmen in terms of multiple businesses. And like in the sixties, was it, was it, was it? Was it kind of easy to set up businesses? Well, we were unemployable, really. Um, unless you got a job in a hotel kitchen or something, I suppose you could. But, but people didn't employ people in drag, you know. I mean, we were still a conservative, even though there were no laws against us, [00:46:30] and they left us alone, pretty much. Um, there was, we didn't get supported. We were Left alone, but we didn't get get supported like that I mean, you couldn't go off to get an apprenticeship or something and I guess there were exceptions to that rule There were people in drag and stealth and different things that did do some of those things But it was easier to own your own business to be your own boss and I think that's where we we got that sort of [00:47:00] ethic from was bloody easier to work for yourself than someone else I still think that. I can set my own pay rate. You've mentioned the Doodle Inn and, well actually before we move on from that, could you describe, what was the decor in the Doodle Inn? Um, Pretty mundane. We didn't do anything to it. It was a Hungarian restaurant [00:47:30] and it just had carpet and tables and chairs and sort of brown walls from memory. It wasn't exciting because you kept the lighting very dim too. Had a good kitchen out the back. Yeah, it was just, just a, just a restaurant. Yeah, nothing exciting. What about, um, uh, Jackie's Coffee Bar? Jackie's Coffee Bar was Egyptian themed, um, We had a big, um, It was quite, [00:48:00] quite large. It seated probably 150. Um, it was, it was, um, Goodman the furrier's workshop, originally, and I went to, old Mr. Goodman, who's a furrier for some reason, he thought I was quite cool, um, and I told him that I wanted somewhere to open a coffee bar, and He had two factories here, one in Manna Street where his retail shop was. [00:48:30] Um, Goodman Furs. Goodman Furs. And the workshop was up in, um, in Willow Street upstairs. And I was looking originally at, at, where his shop was in Mana Street to open something. And he said, oh look, why don't, why don't I move all my factory? You know, 'cause I wanted to, he wanted to downsize anyway. Um, move all the factory into town. Into Manor Street, and you, you can rent the Willis Street one, so I got together a [00:49:00] little consortium of, of, um, A guy called Bill Hornibrook. I don't know if you've ever heard that name. He was a big identity, um, gay guy, uh, gay, gay man who'd been married and family and all the rest, but he was the general manager of Burrows for New Zealand and based in Wellington. And his camp is a row of tents. Um, he was from the Case Cooge. Um, he was from that era. He died quite some years ago. But he sort of mentored me into some of that [00:49:30] stuff. Uh, and he got some of his workmates from Burroughs to invest in what he called an offbeat coffee bar. And, and all he wanted was a way in, a way to get in to find a bit of bloody trade. Um, and nobody knew he was gay because he was still in the closet. Um, but, but, yeah, and Mr. Goodman moved out anyway and it took me about probably a year to build the bloody thing, you know, and get it all up and running. And um. We ran it for a couple of [00:50:00] years and then I decided that it was probably a big mistake. Um, I was going to put a manager in there and we put Shirell in there who was one of the prominent sort of drag queens. Ran the house of Shirell, um, in to manage it and that didn't really work too well for us. But I, I went off to Auckland. Um, and opened Lady Jack's in Queen Street, which was the first, uh, exclusively gay coffee lounge in, [00:50:30] in Auckland. And from there, we built the Empire Room, which was in High Street, um, was an old supermarket in High Street. Um, did, put the drag show in there. Um, it flopped spectacularly. We couldn't get people to come in there. It was down an alleyway. And. Phil Warren came in one night, who ended up being Deputy Mayor of Auckland, or Mayor of Auckland, he was, he owned [00:51:00] clubs all over Auckland, um, he's dead now, and he said, I'm going to close Mojo's down, do you want to take that over and move your show into there? And so we grabbed that, and that was our last ditch stand, and that was a huge success, it went for about 10 years. Uh, we sold out after a couple of years, but that, that kept going for years. Nicole headed that, comped the shows there. Um, and that turned mojos in Auckland. Just, uh, [00:51:30] briefly getting back to, um, Jackie, Jackie's Coffee Bar. What years did that run? That was closed in 1970. One probably, um, 71, something like that. And the doodlin was 67, was it? No, it's before, just before Jackie's. It was just before. So it would be about 66? 66, yeah. Oh, okay. And [00:52:00] what was the decor in Jackie's coffee bar like? Right, it was, it was um, Egyptian themed. I painted this, oh god, I'm stressed over this f ing thing. Where all the lights around the walls were like those um, torches. Egyptian sort of, oh are they Egyptian or Italian? It was Egyptian anyway, these, those torch lamps. Um, with a wall mounting with a, with like a flame lamp, um, right round, [00:52:30] there was a jukebox, um, quite a big kitchen where we did toasted sandwiches and all the usual, everyone did toasted sandwiches in Wellington. Um, and I had a big photo, a big photo, a big painting of Tutankhamen's head on one wall that I did. Um, it took me weeks to do this bloody thing. I've never painted anything in my life before, I was copying this bloody thing, it looked quite stunning. Um, Pinball machine, four marker, four marker [00:53:00] tables, leather seats, fake leather seats. Um, like a great big sort of barn and, and big dance floor, you know, and of course when you turned all the lights down at night, it had a really good atmosphere and it was up a very narrow flight of stairs, so it was very easy to keep control of, um. You know, because we had a few gang wars on Willis Street, um, turf wars with the [00:53:30] Lebanese and the hut boys, trying to take over who was going to control the town sort of thing. So we had, we had a shooting on Stuart Dawson's corner from, from the doorway of our place, which was a bit embarrassing, but, um, yeah, and those turf wars sort of settled and. They carried on. They used to have them by Carmen's at one stage, Vivian Street. There was a lot of vying for control of [00:54:00] turf. And just confirming, the, so the coffee bar, was that on the left hand side or the right hand side? Yeah, next to the Grand Hotel. Which is on the left going down Willis Street. Okay. So as, as you hit towards what the old BNZ center you're, it's on the left hand side. Going down towards Stuart Dawson's corner. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then, you know, about the club that was in upper Willis Street, the Dorian Society. Well, tell me [00:54:30] about that. What was your involvement? I used to go there. Um, The, the first Dorian Society, people, very few people remember that there was one before there, before there was one down in that sort of little mall thing in Willis, in the bottom end of Willis Street. Oh, the, the Willis Street Village. Yes, there was a Dorian Society before that, and it was in Upper Willis Street, and it was a little house, a little two story house. Um, and it was three, [00:55:00] it's all gone now because I've looked to try and work out exactly where it was. Um, And it was run by a few stall, very closeted stalwarts. Um, but when I first came to Wellington, that was it really. That, that, yeah, that, that was sort of the gay nightlife for gay guys. And it was manned by a guy called Don McMillan, who lived up off R. O. Street. Um, I don't know, have you ever heard Don's name come out? It's rung a bell, yes. [00:55:30] Um, very sallow looking guy. I used to buy plants for the pet shop off his father. Um, and Don Neil. Don Neil was, I think, in the Maori Concert Party as a drag queen. I don't know if he's even still alive, but, and there was a committee, there was, I think Jack Goodwin might have been on the Dorian, the original Dorian committee, some of those, um, Bill Bain, [00:56:00] yeah, those, those sort of old, um, you had to have tickets to get, you had to buy a ticket to get in, and then you got the booze, and the cops raided it a couple of times over the years as a token thing, but, um, it went for years and years, and then I think it started going downhill. And, um, uh, So I sort of lost touch with all that. Cause I was out, by about 72, 73, I was in Christchurch and out of all this. Um, when I, when I finished up at Mojo's, I actually got a job on the ships. [00:56:30] For a year or so. And then went to Christchurch and sort of, I didn't go back to Wellington for many years. My sort of Wellington involvement was a lot of things squeezed into a fairly small time frame. So what were the years you would have been in Wellington? From 63 to 1970. 71, coming into 71. Um, but the last year, well I might have gone through to 72 actually [00:57:00] because I was on the ferries. And on, I did a few trips to the islands on different boats and things, so it was only for about a year or so. Malcolm worked on the ships then. It's interesting that, you know, the wharves and the ships have come up and I got out of drag. Right. I got out of drag, um, and I thought, well, I've got to make up my mind. What am I going to do? What am I going to be? Once and for all. So, so I went and did the ship thing, and [00:57:30] I was, I ended up paying off as chief cook. Um, cause that's what I've always, always done. And, um, I got to Christchurch, I bought a house in Christchurch, and I woke up one morning and I thought, no, this is just not working. So, I went off and did the deed, and that was it, and sort of. Lived a fairly straight life after that. It's interesting, just saying before, about [00:58:00] the kind of, you know, ships and wards, um, has come up a number of times. How had, how, how did the kind of the transportation, shipping, sailors influence kind of rainbow culture, do you think? Was it a big thing? Well I guess there's always a good route on a ship. Um, You know, um, sailors were renowned for, you know, their closeted [00:58:30] activities. Um, it was just one of those things I think that gays are gravitated to, and it was a job that you could get, um, and you could do, and there was acceptance. No, nobody gave a shit about anyone that was gay on working on a ship. In fact, it was an advantage, I think. Um, if you were gay, so yeah, it was just the, I guess it's like career paths that people, you know, some people have [00:59:00] bent to be mechanics, some, it's just that sort of career path. We weren't all window dresses and, um, hairdressers. You talked about at the start of the interview, the, um, the, the kind of police harassment in Australia. How were the police in New Zealand? Well, I thought they were, uh, Other people disagree with me. And I think they might have been really good in the 60s, early 70s. Um, [00:59:30] And I'm only talking about Wellington because the Auckland ones were, were shitheads. Um, but the Wellington ones were pretty good, they didn't really worry anyone. They did the obligatory raids and, you know, public toilets and things like that when the mother of six wrote to the Dominion and said there's all these strange men hanging around and, you know, my children are vulnerable or something. And they'd go and do the obligatory raids. Um. But, on the whole, they didn't worry the [01:00:00] drag queens at all, um, unless they were doing something wrong. If you were doing something wrong and breaking the law of the land, then of course the police were going to chase you and they were going to arrest you because you were doing something wrong. If you were selling drugs or you were doing burglaries or something, of course they're going to chase you, but they'd chase anyone for those same things. Um, and the police were only I don't blame the police for anything they really did because the police were only acting on the [01:00:30] laws that they were charged to act on. Um, so it was the politicians that we should have been hating on and targeting rather than, rather than the poor old cops that were just sort of at the end of the food chain carrying out the duty. Um, I've, I've, I, I personally never had an issue ever with the police in Wellington. Um, And I know very few people who did, I know some, oh, sorry, I should say, I know some people who did, but they were doing other things [01:01:00] and, and, as I quite often remind one or two people, you've got to put it in context as to what you were doing when the police were chasing you. But just being in drag, being trans, um, no, it wasn't an issue, from my perspective, and, and there were no laws against it either, and we can thank Carmen for that, because she challenged, she got arrested in Auckland a few years before, and, and she challenged it and pleaded not guilty, and had a pretty [01:01:30] smart lawyer, who, um, the judge ruled that there was no law against a man dressing as a woman, and, and that was the end of that for forever and a day. Um, she had another court case many years later when she was in Wellington and she was running the strip club. Um, one of, no, it was the coffee bar. Um, one of her girls, Carol D'Winter, got arrested for prostitution upstairs at Carmen's Coffee Bar. Which was pretty renowned for, [01:02:00] you know, you could have a coffee downstairs and a young lady or a young man upstairs, um, but anyway, Carol got arrested and the cops charged her with being a male doing an indecent act and the indecent act was supposedly on the undercover policemen and Roy Stacey, our wonderful darling Roy Stacey, who used to be a top barrister in Wellington back in those days and looked after Carmen and a lot of the gay community [01:02:30] fought the charge and The jury came back and said that Carol DeWinter was not a man, she was a woman, and, um, I've got all the clippings from the newspaper for that, um, sex change man, now a real woman or something, the headline was in the Dominion, and that was the end of that forever and a day as well, um, and I can't recall anyone really being charged after that or, Any, any much harassment. I think they learnt [01:03:00] their lesson that we were, we were, that was the start of the fighting back, I think, um, that we weren't going to tolerate any of that sort of behavior and we'd fight back and, and then law reform, um, homosexual law reform society formed and, and there was a lot of, uh, gay liberation, um, which I was one of the founding members in Wellington of, um, um, That all we all start we started fighting back on those things and and it took a few years, but by God We've [01:03:30] done pretty well We've pretty much got the lot now and I see a lot of young people are still fighting for some something that I'm not quite sure what but Most of those battles have been fought and won as far as I'm concerned. Well when I hear When I heard you talk at the start of this interview about what it was like in Sydney in the in the 50s and 60s It just, chalk and cheese. It just sounded like this is a completely another world that I had no [01:04:00] conception of. Yeah Yes, and that's why I've just, I've always just loved New Zealand I've never wanted to, never had any desire to go back to Australia to live I've only ever been back about three times to visit Because I just have such bad memories of Australia, um, when I was young and I know a lot of other people do too. It was bloody horrible. And New Zealand was like a breath of fresh air. I mean, yes, we had people [01:04:30] who were racist. We've got people who were homophobic or transphobic. Um, but we've got people who don't like redheads, who don't like fat people. We've got people who don't like Like, people who have got disabilities, you know, um, we've got people who don't like Maori place names around the country and that's the topic at the moment, um, especially where I live. Um, but, you know, we've always got people who don't like something, [01:05:00] but, but on the whole the culture is accepting and you can live in peace, you can run a business, you can do whatever you want, and more importantly, you can be whatever you want. I mean, we're now. Back in my day, gay doctors and things were, were like hen's teeth. Um, lawyers, there was no openly gay professional people around. Now, now you can be anything. You can be the deputy prime minister. You can be members of parliament. You can be on councils. Um, you can be [01:05:30] whatever you want to be. Personally, I think a lot of that stems from Like, your bravery, and Carmen's bravery, and Chrissie Wetuku's bravery, because if it wasn't for your generation. But when you say that, you've got to say that with hindsight, because we didn't. Think we were being brave. We were just surviving. Uh, we were doing what we, what we knew to, to [01:06:00] survive. We weren't thinking, well, in 30 years time, people are going to be standing on our shoulders or, you know, and saying, oh, they did it for us and all that sort of stuff. Um, that was the furthest thing from our minds. We were, we were surviving and we were having a ball. I mean, Wellington was the most fun city ever. Um, it had so many clubs, it had so many places to go, it had so many it was fun. It was So then, what would your advice be to, [01:06:30] um, a young trans person now, or a young rainbow person? It's about being who you want to be, um, being yourself. And making, making the right choices, I guess, um, because now, these days, you don't have to make bad choices. Back in, back in nowadays, we had to make some fairly bad choices and do some things that we wouldn't necessarily do now to survive. Um, now you don't have to do that.[01:07:00] Um, but above all else, you know, get over yourselves, I think. Um, you're not victims anymore. You know, stop being, playing the victim because you're not victims. Um, you are the authors of your own destiny. If you want to be a victim, you be a victim. But all the victims that I've known all through my life are all dead. They didn't survive. All the, all the trans and drag queens and God knows what that hit the bottle or hit the [01:07:30] pills, um, self destructed themselves because they couldn't come to terms with what they were or society and how people put you down and all the rest of it. They're all dead. There's thousands of them. I could name probably offhand a hundred, um, that I knew. Um, you just gotta be a bit stronger than that and, and look past, you know, everybody hates me sort of thing, cause they don't. Most people don't give a shit what anyone does, to be quite honest. They [01:08:00] just, most people are getting on with their own baggage, rather than worrying too much about everyone else's. There's a whole culture going through the, through, well not all the young ones obviously, but, but a lot of the young sort of more radical And I, I sort of bit unfairly say, Oh, you're just rebels looking for a cause. You're, you're looking for the cause, but the cause has been one. Well, the cause in a way it's been one, but in a way there's still a long way to go [01:08:30] and whatever, whatever we've gained can, can always be taken away too. And we're coming into a period of right wing ideologies right around the world. And you know, you've got Putin. Causing wars. You've got all sorts of, uh, in Iran and Iraq and all those places. You've got all this right wing ideology coming. That will spread and that way, you know, what, what you can be given can be taken off you too. So you've got to be vigilant, but, but you've also got to be [01:09:00] reasonable in what you ask for and demand. So that everyone can can be tolerant of everyone else. Does that make sense? It does. I'm still thinking back on when I was I guess talking about Thinking about the the bravery that that that I see in Earlier generations. I mean for me as somebody growing up [01:09:30] now Your generation and the generations before are real inspirations. Yes, but we didn't set out to be inspirations. No, you didn't. We were just surviving. You didn't set out, but you are. I mean, when I got thrown in Long Bay Jail, um, Back in those days, if we didn't have boobs, um, we'd just started on hormones which we bought illegally from a chemist shop in Sydney for 10 a hundred. God knows what we're doing [01:10:00] to our bodies with that. But, but anyway, um, for boobs, we used to, we used to have bras. Um, with double balloons full of honey or birdseed, and they felt like boobs, um, and you put it in your bra. Well, I remember when I got thrown into Long Bay Jail, the first thing they did was you got into the reception area, which was a great big courtyard, it was outside, and there was all these yards full of bloody prisoners. And they'd parade the [01:10:30] drag queens out there, shave your head, that was the first thing they did. Um, cut all your hair off, cause that was the drag queen's pride and glory. How long you could let your hair grow, sort of showed how long you've been able to avoid the police. Um, And, and just totally traumatized you out there and, and you either got traumatized or you fought back. And I, I remember the first time I went in there, I grabbed me boob out, out of my bra with the honey and threw it at the screw and it burst on his head and, and the [01:11:00] whole. Place went into an uproar of cheering and, and I was fine. I never had a problem from then on, but because I'd fought back, um, and I've done that all my life. I've never, never ever been the victim and I don't want to allow myself to be the victim. Um, but that's, you know, that's my sort of character. Um, some people can't do that. I know, um. But a lot of people can if they really try. [01:11:30] You, you mentioned earlier that you were going to do a speech tomorrow, and the speech tomorrow is part of an unveiling ceremony for two memorial seats for Chrissie Wiitoku and Carmen Ruppe, and it's so wonderful that you're here in Wellington to do that. What does it mean for you to have things like the memorial seats, um, kind of in? Well, I, I, I mean, I mean, Carmen and Chris were, were my two best, besties, they were my two best friends and, [01:12:00] um, you know, I'm 78, nearly 79, um, Chris was born a week after me, so she would have been 78 now, um, coming up 79, um, Carmen was 6 or 7 years older than us, but, but, yeah, to see your best friends being honoured this way. Um, in the city that you really love and, and, and my best times were in Wellington. Um, you know, I love coming back to [01:12:30] Wellington and, um, it's, it's, yeah, it's, and to see that change in, in society and all the rest of it, even though Wellington was very, it's always been free and easy and friendly though. It's, it's, it's a unique city in the world really. Um, I've, I've been to San Francisco many times and that, but no one's as friendly as our own Wellington. Nobody smiles at you or says hello or anything. Wellington they do. You walk down the street and you can get a smile out of anyone. [01:13:00] Um, and it's a pretty unique sort of city. Auckland's not like that. Dunedin's not like it, you know, it's, it's, it's quintessential Wellington. Um, yeah, it's just a great city and it always has been. And yeah, to see, to see them honored like that, I think is, is just amazing. Um, yeah, let's have more of it.
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