00:00 It was very hard in the early days to understand about sex, because we did not get sex education. So when things suddenly started to happen, you sort of talked amongst the boys and a couple of times you look, see who's got the biggest and what the differences and things like that. But I never thought of it in a sex way. I just thought it was one of those things that happened to guys. By default I spent a lot of time with boys in those days, we played sport together and but at the same times we were Prefects in schools and there were girls there. There was a mixed match school so often the girls would partner with boys for dances or girl/girl or boy/boy and things like that. But it never really struck me as being a homosexual thing.
00:00:58 Q: So what kind of year are we talking ?
A: We're talking early 60s.
Q: And what type school was it ?
It was a Polytech but not quite ……. Hutt Valley Memorial Technical College. But it was no longer strictly Technical. Longer term I was quite comfortable with girls at school. And I was also quite comfortable with boys. And I had just an open, what I call a 1960s sort of approach to everything, even to trying a few things out like the old marijuana, which we all seem to have done. But it didn't go with me. Things like that. I was playing good cricket and rugby. I found that trying to smoke anything was not good for my health, I'd be playing sport, I'd get batting at cricket and I'd be up 10 - 20 runs and I'd be running out of steam. So I had to have a big change in there.
I went to Outward Bound School. Got sponsored by the company. After Outward Bound (course) was over it really, really made me wake up to myself that I had leadership skills. I won't go into why here but basically that's what it was about - to give you confidence.
I came back on the (Interisland) ferry and a guy coming back was from Waipukurau. I was 21 and he was 19. We got to know each other and got
Coincidentally he came back to work in Wellington at Kodak in Victoria Street. The Television place where I worked was further down where what is now the Public library
Six months on from that meeting there was a Outwards Bound Old Boys ReUnion of people who meet and fund-raise to get boys not so fortunate, and that type of thing, onto a course. And we ended up getting a bit drunk again and went back to his flat. And he had an argument with the person he was living with there. He was asked to leave, nothing to do with me being there. But it was obviously some argument. So we piled all his stuff into my car. I couldn't go home at that stage because I’d had a few so we drove to Island Bay and slept on the beach. At that time that was my first real relationship …… we went flatting. We shared a flat in Overtoun Terrace with one of my colleagues from the TV and we found he happened to be gay. So he introduced us more or less to the scene in those days about 1970 71 72.
And then we ended up with part-time extra jobs as I wanted to go overseas at some stage. We got a job at the St. George (Hotel) through somebody in the Ski Club who owned the St George. He (then) introduced us to the guy at the Britannia Bar just down the road (Willis Street) and my mate worked in the small front Cocktail bar which was actually a top class pick-up girl place which opened my eyes to a few things when I heard what these ladies were doing there! And then we were asked to go to the Royal Oak (Hotel) upstairs because we were honest, what was in the til at the end of night was what should be there. There was no giving away drinks. I mean, we had no intent to do things like that because we thought we would lose our jobs.
And we were quite (gay-wise) good “meat”. So then we were asked to work in the Tavern Bar which was another bar in the Royal Oak which was gay. And in those days there were two entrances. One went from Dixon Street and the other came from Manners Street. There were other bars on the ground floor also. One was called the Bistro where all the trannies and hookers went in and picked up the Japanese (Squid boat) sailors and that was Oh God ! The other one was a Public Bar on Manners Street. And there was a big hallway that ran from Manners Street to Dixon Street.
What would happen is not many guys in the gay scene would come in the Dixon Street entrance but rather the Manners Street entrance and look as though they were going into the Public Bar but actually walk through and come through the door of the Tavern Bar. The two of us worked together and what happened there often you would be asked to take your shirt off ? You get tipped 50 cents or something like that but we played the game quite well. The Bar shut at 10 o'clock. And by 10.15pm everyone had to leave and then we had to clean up by 10.30pm. We got introduced to the (gay) Dorian Club that way. People took us to the Dorian clubrooms (in Lambton Quay opposite Kirkcaldies). But, to me, the interesting thing to me was the type of people that turned up there.
[00:05:58] I was quite naïve in my early 20s and things I know today, many years on, are quite a lot obviously. But the experience there was quite comforting, you felt safe. But what happened once (at the Dorian) was really a funny story. One night I was checking entry tickets at the bottom of the stairs where we used to sell tickets for the booze (no money changed hands upstairs) and then you go up the stairs and here was a big guy DJ from Radio Windy pumping the music – he was called Trundle. It was really, really hip cool …. Trundle covered all ages.
When I was a new boy there at that time I was seen as such a “good boy”. Each year they have awards ….. awards for anything and you have to have some humour when you win one. I got the award for “Betty Good Box”. Yes, it was quite, quite an honour on my part ! (Yeah Right !)
But what then happened was, we were trucking along one time and they (Committee) had been having a little bit of trouble with money. So they had asked me to be Treasurer. I became Treasurer for 6 months because I evidently looked pretty straight up. It was obvious that things weren’t totally right. But we turned it all around.
We had a little office at the top of the stairs and a little safe in there. It was all cash remember, in those days. Everyone had a (door) key. So one night we were there someone came up the stairs and right behind him were policemen. I shat my pants because I was up the top of the stairs busy putting some money in the safe. So I shut the door quickly and I stayed at the top of the stairs whilst 2 of the cops went in (to the main room); the music went down and they went around and to see who was there. And I thought Shit we've been raided. But it wasn't. It wasn't really what we thought. And I started chatting to this guy there, a Policeman, and I asked what's going on and he said ” It’s all good. We are just looking for someone who has committed a theft.” They didn’t arrest anyone, they just left. It turned out longer term they were looking for a gay guy who had been on a cruise ship to Fiji and who had actually burgled or robbed people on the boat. They did eventually find him but that's another story.
[00:08:10] Next day, I'm playing rugby at Kilbirnie Park. And for some reason, about three minutes into the game somebody got seriously hurt. So the whole game stopped. In those days I was on the Wing (where the more glamour boys go hehe) and I was just standing there with the ball because in those days wings threw the ball in to the ugly forwards and a couple of guys come over and we were just chatting. I looked at one and thought that face looks familiar and asked him “What time did you finish your shift?.” And the guy looked at me and he said “No, no”. Well, anyway, it turns out they had some policemen in the team and some other sort of other thing like that. So we had a good beer afterward with everyone coming over – I felt like flavour of the month - without people giving away what, what it was about. But yeah, I found it interesting and what they said to me was they weren't out after the gay people because, you know, we weren't in the toilets, they knew we were in a place where were keeping in our group. And that’s basically what I found out later on from one of the Policemen many years later at Carmen’s birthday function when we discussed it and he said “Yes, it was good to have people we knew that weren't doing badly”. But from a personal point of view of that night was still a big memory.
At the time I was mixing with lots of gay guys, but I was also in a mixed flat as well. Eventually my life took off from there - I went overseas for a few years but when I came back and met people things had changed. Overseas I went to London and I went to the Vauxhall Tavern and there I saw Lee Sutton and the real class drag acts like Miss Shuttlewick – not what you saw in New Zealand – Carmen was only the closest to them – I am not knocking the other ones down but ones with real class here I just didn't see them back home.
But Carmen, I put Carmen on Telethon in 1976 when I was working for TV2 and we had hardly staff in Wellington on TV so sort of, by default, all ended up working on the Telethon and I conned Carmen and asked her to go on Telethon. I had to tell her what it was as no one here knew what it was so Carmen agreed and came to the Telethon. The deal was that she would join the panel and then answer the phones and at 3am in the morning, I had asked Carmen if some of her Girls could come down and do a dance, but they had to have Patsies on their boobs and not only on the boobs !
But no strip, no naked stripping, because we're on TV. So that was okay. Didn't go that well with Auckland, (Wellington gonna have striptease), but I think in the end, they took them nationwide because they had nothing on Auckland at 3am that exciting when that was happening.
On the night Carmen turned up early. She was meant to come about 1am. But she turned up about 11.30pm because no-one was in her club. They were all home watching TV ! At the time she arrived at the Show Building in John Street Bas Tubert was on the panel (he was a popular radio announcer man). Bas saw Carmen and got up (from the Panel) and walked towards Carmen (forgetting he was on-camera and walking out of shot). Being TV2 we only had 4 cameras, none couldn't exactly turn quickly when Carmen arrived. But somehow in the control room, they more or less guessed what was going on as Bas bought Carmen over and sat her down, no mic nothing, beside him and they got going. Well anyway the phones started coming very beserk with everyone wanting to talk to Carmen. So we moved her over there (where the many phones were.) And she did raise a lot of money. I mean, it was a novelty thing, I think but I don't know.
Her Girls then turned up early too; they sat there and had their long coats on (mid-winter). Thankfully they had music organised. It was pretty cool because some people turned up to do something and we didn't have a backing band to go behind them. So they had to bring their own music somehow. But anyway, we were going along quite happily and Auckland called for any help with anything. They did a very good show (nationwide) and then did another one at 4.30am.
It became a bit embarrassing because Buzz O’ Bumble was not supposed to be on with Lindsey Yeo until 6am. But we suddenly had these young school kid fans arriving with parents and still the near naked show girls going round with money buckets, one of the girls had lost one of her patsies. I turned around and one of the guys working with me and said “Oh shit !” and he said “Don’t fret, at some stage in life kids have to learn something!” So we did have a good time.
[00:13:05] But those were the days where I found an acceptance of people not looking strangely at people, you know, there was homophobia because at that stage, the 1986 thing hadn't come through, the Law change hadn't happened. But it was from an underlying point of view I was always worried that I might lose my job. But turning that around the people who came to New Zealand in the 60s to help New Zealand television develop came from British stage and theatre and they'd done some television experience. Most of them were gay and you work with them and it didn't bother you. But it was quite exciting. Some of the guys who worked with us were very good looking and exciting. I think we would call them twinks these days, but we didn't realise it. You just saw yourself as yourself. But no, things moved on. But the good thing about it was that television got rid of glass ceiling for women because it lifted them up totally into because you had to have women’s programmes.
And you also end up with people like Hudson and Halls, Peter Sinclair, Lew Pryme - a lot of people come out of the closet in that respect.
But they didn't really get beaten up or anything. But at the same time, I've always worried myself that I was going to get scrunched in the bottom of a (rugby) ruck somewhere, you know, but people were quite surprised, in some respects, that I may even have that leaning because I just played straight. But that's just me. Life went on.
Those were the early days but once I did go to some parties at Raumati (beach) where there was a group of guys, Case and John and a well known group from Wellington. We got invited up to Raumati. They had hired a house like an Airbnb type thing now but in those days just a house up there for about two weeks at Christmas, everybody piled up there.
Q: Who was Case ?
A: Case Cooge. He was working in a Printing shop called Zodiac in Courtenay Place in Wellington. Because I knew him and I was on a Ski club committee we used him for all our printing. This is the sort of liaisons that happened. You help each other. But we go up there and it would have been before I went overseas, so it would have been 1972. We got invited up there so my flatmate and I were ready to trundle up there but before we went we got a phone call; remember this was the days before cell-phones – it was a toll call from Raumati – and “Would we pay the charge !” And that was quite funny ! What they wanted was another case of Gin. They had been up there only about three or four days. Their supplies must have been were running a bit low !!! So we went and got some Gin and put it on their account. When we arrived up there’s a guy from London who works in Harrods who was a Kiwi (visiting) and him and I got on quite well so it was a good time. But that was up there (Raumati) and what they'd done – the place didn't have curtains in some parts in the kitchen in the bedrooms, so they put newspaper up for privacy. We went midnight swimming rather than midday swimming, but some people had a habit of losing their togs,, they couldn’t find them in the dark. It was quite fun. I think had been daylight it would have been quite fun ! It was things like that you did have close groups that become friends and could trust each other. That was my thing. The trust was the thing yeah. But I was quite surprised when over time as I got more and more into the circle with the people there they were quite genuine. There were one or two idiots screaming a bit like queens that shouldn’t
have been so loud.
[00:17:33] Going on from there I did get married. Carmen and I had had a good discussion about things often. Carmen once said ”The greatest gift that you can have is have children”. And I asked her when I did an interview many years later with her if she enjoyed her life as it was. But yes, I would agree with her, you know, do what gives you meaning to your life.
So I wasn't totally gay, you know, neither on the far left on the radar nor was I far right on it. I was sort of a middle but some people didn't like that. They’d say you can't sleep with a guy and you can’t also sleep with a girl? Well, that's their your problem, not mine. But I just see people as they are …. people.
Q:What do you call it? Is it love?
A: That I don't know. There are times when I will help people because in my early days older people helped me whether it be at work or whatever. And as I got older, I saw the younger ones struggling. I went onto Rainbow Wellington Executive Board (formally Gap - Gay Association of Professionals). I was on the Board for 10 years. We did a lot of things.
We did the Civil Union and , lobbying on marriage issues. We dealt with Blood donation issues, things like HIV. In that retrospect with HIV, there are quite a few broadcasting people that died from it. And some were close to me. I had worked with them side-by-side editing film or helping to research something. And one of the saddest things I saw was a really talented guy one day that I hadn't seen him for a while at Avalon and he said “Hi, Phil. Good to see you” I turned around and it was like walking death coming at me completely glazed skin. Sunken eyes. No, it was tragic. I didn't know what to say. And of all the people, nobody told me - people just said always he’s got cancer. And that was the way it was but he was a lovely guy. But then it turned out another one passed away. One used to be a talented Head of Department when he passed away. Their names are recorded everywhere (including on a big Quilt). And they have a Aids Memorial each year in Wellington, so I go to that. I also met Daniel Fielding. He was working at the bar that I was working at and also working at a Mens’ Sauna - and that was my introduction to saunas !
Q: What was the bar that you're working at called ?
A: The Bluenote, on the corner of Cuba and Vivian Streets. It was in the red light district. I wrote and produced a stage show in 2007 called “On the Corner” for the Fringe Festival. What that was about was written in 6 weeks because as a bar we had changed the name to The Fringe because were trying to get a wider sort of patronage. It was an all-night bar commonly known as the “last resort”. We were well-known to the gay community. But you had anything in there, even a “lady” who had a good way of throwing chairs across the room, right across, I mean, she would have won the shotput at the Olympics, when she lost it, or someone called her something unkind …. that was it! These days she is a model of society, and gone quite a high way ! Basically, with the show I drew a line in the sand -1986 - and I said, let's create the district as it was in Vivian Street, going backwards. I went to the Prostitutes Collective and got all their old Newsletters of the era. I learned that Prostitutes do not sell sex - they sell time. In fact, their information was very good so I wrote a script from parts and I used a lot of my tenants who were staying upstairs to act in the play. Eventually overall, we had 20 people in the play!
[00:21:28] I used the (licenced) Karaoke music because we already had the music rights. I wanted the cast to sing because most of the Queens in the London bars would sing alive. So in each skit they sung live except for where they had to do fast costume changes on stage we pre-recorded and they mimed. In a way you didn't notice because people are moving quickly.
The play was booked for 8 days because no other shows had been booked for the first week of the Festival which went for 3 weeks. The youngest cast member was 19 and the oldest was about 72 or 74. John Joliffe was narrator, later on he was in the first Civil Union (in New Zealand). His partner Des was also in the show. We had a show half time break and they “sung” the Chesdale Cheese song ……
We are the boys from over the hill,
We really know our sex,
There’s nothing better than using
Condoms from Durex
And then they, the black singlet guys, started throwing the sponsor’s products into the audience and saying “Go for it” because it was half time.
So it was a one real fun show. We had 5 actors in the Carmen skit after I had got permission from Carmen to do a segment about her. Elsewhere there were skits of different things during what happened in the era, being lonely in the street, to drugs and all that.
We had all these people in the show and as I was writing the script, I was going upstairs occasionally and asking do you want to be in it? Can you do a drag act or something like that. We had some straight boys in it – one sang “Sexual Healing” as not all things such as Prostitution had been sorted out until later after the Reform Law in 1986. So I included that success in the play. I got one of our bar DJs to sing the song who was also a male stripper. He stripped to his jockstrap each night but on the final night I didn't know that we were going to get the full monty! It was one of those shows that just developed!
I had the one where the section was on Carman - we did the teacup sequence, which is where you have (in Carmen’s Coffee Lounge) a cup upside down on a saucer means you want straight sex, if he wanted to be entertained by a trannie he would lay his cup on a side, if you wanted a gay boy he would place his saucer on top of the cup. But you know, that was in Carmen’s biography all the way back. So we used that as a skit and that went down like nothing on earth with the audience. The show stopped every night !
Once I had a problem because we could not rehearse the show on the bar site. I had made the show in segments and rehearsed off-site. Then we did one final run through at the bar. At the last minute I realised that there was a few things missing. John Joliff was the linking narrator (between scenes). He was stationed behind the bar, and it was like a TV News thing -you have a news item intro and then go to the news item. In this show we had John with the intro and then you have the act on stage.
But (in this case) I had nothing written in the script for when John talks to Carmen as she arrives, because she's coming from the Balcony (International Stage Lounge) end then goes to the Coffee Lounge. She's got to get (onto the stage) to the coffee club, which is just a walk across to the stage. But I hadn't written the script. And the same problem at the end of thing. I hadn't got her offstage.
So I said to Parekatuku Moore, a lovely Māori lady who was playing Carmen, to take the Carmen biography book home and find something. I had so many little things to do elsewhere that I had to fix up before the next night’s opening. I had an awesome Director to help which was great but both of us did not really know on opening night what was going to happen when Carmen came on.
We had a packed house every night, mostly older people 30+. When I say that, a lot of them are relating to what was going on.
[00:25:27] Carmen ”arrived” and she started walking across to the stage and she said: “Hello, Albert. Parliament not sitting tonight ?“and everyone laughed then “Hello David - the flowers those gladiolus I gave you – did your Mum like them ?” “Yes thankyou“ - the audience really related to all that. And she got up on stage and went through the skit of the cups and all. Then she started walking off the stage and I wondered what next?
As she starts walking off the stage standing up tall, a rather large lady and she asked “Do I hear somebody asking me if I was pregnant ?”. And she cracks her fan loudly glaring at the audience and says “Well, actually, I am”. And then “What’s that? Do I know who the father was?” And flapping her fan loudly again “Do I have eyes in the back of my head ? “ Well, every night, the show stopped. It just stopped ! It just drove everybody to standing applause – it was brilliant acting.
But what I liked about it also was the acceptance that people weren't calling insults. And when we were finishing the last thing I script on a show like this is end with a curtain call with “I am What I am” And we did that. And every night we got a standing ovation.
But the thing was I split it (the show) into two halves. A reviewer criticised me because some of the second half was a bit dragged out (pardon the pun). We decided we should have a drinks break to help the bar take. It's tough in the bar trade ! But we did well for half an hour because everyone's chatting away, you know.
We had a catastrophe on opening night with Toni Roget. Toni,(Frankie) was a drag queen from way back. And he stormed on stage singing the song “There’s a right way to do it”. And bear in mind he was 72. On the first night as he was storming onto the stage he tripped up in his high heels and sprained his ankle. So for every night for the next 7 nights of the show he soaked his feet in a bucket of water and ice and drank the nerves away with Gin so he could get on stage. A real trouper. It was one of those sort of, well, show things that happen!
At the end of the Fringe Festival we were invited to go down to San Francisco Bar for the Awards. Everyone was having drinks and Awards were being given out and somebody asked me “What are you doing here? You're meant to be up there. They just called you out!” “And what the hell do you mean?” “We won and award for the most colourful show in the Fringe”. We had we won the Honorable Best Theatre Award ! So I had to unexpectedly step up and accept.
But what it did show to me was the acceptance of society had changed from when I was trying to put myself in the closet. For that reason. “I am what I am”. And that's basically it.
[00:28:17] Q: What year was that ?
A: This was 2007.
Q: You've covered well, a decade's worth of material and there's so much in there. Do you mind if we just go back and ask you a couple of questions about particularly in the days when this is well before homosexual law reform so we're talking about the 60s. What was how were homosexuals or bisexuals treated?
[00:28:44] A: Bisexuals were probably looked on by the gay community as guys who don’t fit alongside them - you're not gay or we used to get ostracised= you don't go with those and that was that one, yeah.
The rugby clubs and that sometimes thought you were possibly a poof or whatever but because of that I’d look hopefully straight I think. I got worried that somebody will find out but I got away with a lot of things because I worked in TV and they sometimes called me Glam. But now it was due to things that you didn't do. I mean, it was an underlying thing that it was not right to be a homo. It was uncomfortable.
[00:29:35] Q: What kind of words would they use?
[00:29:39] A: Faggot. Poofta. I honestly just cant remember in fine detail but I touched on it because you do have guys there who obviously, the way they are born in their system, were gay and I mean they were window dressers and things like that. And they obviously go What's wrong with him? It's not in your face. It's like John Inman in “Are You Being Served”, clap your hands around, by all means, but you're not going to be in the face of somebody who's straight and you're trying to straighten them out to get them to be your friend, you know. That thing was, ironically, there was a lot of British shows on TV which were gay. That was interesting part. In New Zealand Hudson and Halls got openly accepted, laughed at, you know, got accepted. And that I would say that would be the first, I could be wrong, but the first couple to play openly in New Zealand as gay people on screen in 1976.
[00:30:39] Was there one of those things where you could become in certain situations, but actually, you knew when to kind of pull back actually
[00:30:47] Oh, yeah, hell yeah. Let's say some of my friends when I had a big birthday party at the end to celebrate my 50th. We had a big, big party. I had my Bank manager there, my Travel agent, my best school friend from Primary School, a mixture of everybody in my life, even my bloody dentist for God’s sake and others I have forgotten – I just invited them along because it was an important stage in my life. But a lot of people who knew me did not know me. And to me, they suddenly see that explains a lot. Yeah, it was a great party. I mean, you have a party in the Bluenote Bar and in comes the big drag queen Amanda La Whore, (who I was managing at the time) decides to sing “I am what I am” to the speaker's outside facing State Highway One.
And floating out dancing out the bar with the microphone in the middle of the State Highway One traffic lights and everything coming to a standstill while she does a number at my birthday party I mean, that was class !
The other class was when we had John Key, the Prime Minister who used to come to Logan Brown (restaurant) across the road from where we lived. And one of the things we did for him was to climb out onto the balcony, take the speakers out and put on a brief gay show. Two decks below was the Security guys guarding him because he was at the window upstairs across the street ! And we put on a show for him.
We would do jokes like that and get away with the – that 2008 or 2009. On Tuesday nights he would dine at Logan Brown. I mean, Wellington is small …. (Winston) Peters used to go to the Green Parrot. Wellington sometimes isn't so small you know? That happened one night when I came back from an overseas trip and went to the Green Parrot and Winnie came in with James Shaw (Greens) !!!
[00:33:01] Really, I mean, behind the scenes I had a lot to do with Parliament at one stage, they have got a job to do and have some time to relax but at the same time, you'll get some pretty stodgy; the blowhards you know like Norman Jones and we've got some people we never hear of !
00:33:26] Q: So in the 60s, how did you meet other people from the Rainbow community?
A: I didn't know there was a community I mean, yeah, in the 60s, the first half of the 60’s I was at College and later I started in TV so a gay community to me didn't exist like now. Later on, I did meet gay people, but I wouldn't say there was a community of people then. It wasn't until I got to the Dorian in the 70s it became apparent.
I am just trying to think when we went down south --- there was a group in Christchurch. My friend and I used to go skiing at Mount Hutt and Porter Heights. We would go down on the Ferry (to Lyttleton) at 8 o’clock at night on Friday night. In those days I think Mal (Vaughan) was on then boats in those days. We'd go down to Lyttleton. We would get on the train or the Christchurch boys would pick us up - I think most the time we got on the train and got picked up at the Christchurch station. They took us straight to the mountains and they did things like laying out a white tablecloth with a bloody Candelabra silver with candles preparing for lunch – the whole bloody lot in the car park! At night we'd go to a party in someone’s place like Fendalton, really classy places and look at some (gay) movies that someone smuggled in from overseas. But yeah, all that was fun. We stayed at somebody's flat. They were really good to us. On one summer at Christmas we went down to Taylor's Mistake near Christchurch for a week. Somebody had a bach on the beach there; there were a lot of gay people. It was fun.
I was familiar, as I said with Case Cooge I mentioned earlier - we went to places in Island Bay (in Wellington). Ironically, next door to where we live now was a very famous gay-scene house. There was a Symphony Orchestra pianist living there - he was a gay guy who passed away many years ago.
He used to have a grand piano in the living room. A neighbour, who lived a few doors down, told me it was a real gay scene with men dressing up as ladies and so on. A year ago, his friend staying there passed away also. Whilst people were cleaning the property up they found lots of important history documentation and photos of the gay scene years ago. I think LAGANZ have rescued all that and going through it to permanently archive the find.
[00:36:46] Did you ever name it what you were ? Like, did you ever you know, say gay or bisexual? I mean, or was it just, this is who somebody was.
[00:36:56] I don't think I knew the word gay. Not really. No, I never knew that. It wasn't until many years later I thought it was like gay. I could be wrong, but I don't recall the word gay earlier. Maybe in London when I went in 1973. It was a big eye opener London, I went to the gay Vauxhall Tavern on Tuesday nights and you'd go to Pig and Whistle in Camden Town for Sunday elevenses and there was a lot of Kiwis and Australians there. Then we would go to Hampstead Heath and sunbathe in the Men’s area. And then we go down to the Green Man, I think that was what it was called for the Sunday roast dinner night and it was all gay. The routine tended to help get to know a lot of people. And I worked in the BBC. That was classical gay !. The Commissionaire, who liked me really much that I was able to grab his hat off and wear it upstairs editing that day with the hat on. I mean, there was a lot of fun. But yeah, it was very more open in London than it was in New Zealand at the time.
[00:38:06] So do you feel like in the late 60s, did you feel repressed or liberated because I'm thinking that, you know, gay liberation didn't happen until well, you know, the kind of activism stuff didn't happen until say the late 60s early 70s
[00:38:21] Bear in mind that NZ Pub closing was 6pm and then in 1967, 10 o'clock, and the age was 21. I ignored the law in terms of you know what the hell, you don't have to tell me what to do. That was the thing. I said stuff you - what happens privately is none of the state’s business and that was my attitude at that age. You know, it's like the people in the thing that happened yesterday, the protest demonstration, along the lines of stuff the lot of you, I am not going to do this. They complained yesterday, but what I'm saying is, I didn't see that was right. I'm not going to do something then run away and let them say ”Hey, you've done it, you know, it's naughty.” But there were a lot people in Wellington, especially gay, wanting to get on with their life and back then in the Dorian they were from all walks of life.
[00:39:21] So how did you come across the Dorian club?
[00:39:25] We were working part-time at the Tavern Bar and as Barmen we had to be up out by 10.30pm. So people often say to us “What are you doing after” and ask would we like to come have a drink with them. Of course we wanted to drink because we were actually not allowed to drink when working. So we walked down to the Dorian Club from Dixon Street to Lambton Quay to opposite Kirkaldies, or now it is David Jones.
Later the Dorian moved up to Willis Street Village because the building got pulled down.
[00:39:57] Q: And the one opposite David Jones what was it like – on the 1st floor, not the Ground floor ?
A: On the first floor. It had a staircase to above, I think it was Hannah’s Shoe shop, but I could be wrong. There was a small door there and after that you went upstairs and then it stepped up another half step to get to the dancing there. I think toilets next for some reason, also the little office. But yeah, it was good. They sometimes had Sunday parties there also. I think once we had ladies there as I remember taking my lady flatmates. But a lot of guys didn’t want women there. In those days when we worked at the Royal Oak those were still the days of the Lounge bar upstairs which was for women; that's where you took your partner. So it was segregated. The Public bar was Men, the Tavern Bar was men, but not so much the Bistro as there was trannies and some straights. But upstairs was a nice lounge bar. And in those days when I looked back in history, the lounge bars were for ladies. It was same at the Britannia - there the Public bar was for men and mostly people working at the Dominion (newspaper) and those days printing it and all that and then the bar at the front was for ladies mostly; but some there for what’s the word for “high class” ? It was a sort of secret.
[00:41:40] Q: Where was the Britannia ?
A: Going down Willis Street down basically where the Metro New World is now.
Q: So basically across the world from Unity Books ?
A: Yes, Unity Books. Up the street before that on the corner you had Duke of Edinburgh bar - that was a mixture of people upstairs, then you had the St George across the road but that was pretty straight and then as you went down you came to the Britannia and the Carlton and in that bar you would have a lot of us TV people drinking to about seven and then you went up to Duke. So it was a lot of creative people, some left to go home to the wife and kids given time but the others of us went up and there was a “nice smell” in the air occasionally !
[00:42:24]Q: So there was a bar on literally every corner !
A: Yeah, back then but also in those days Cuba Street become Cuba Mall in 67 when I started working – the Oaks became the Pound at one stage and that was upstairs and that would have been the Banana Bar before that, Mal and Scotty would tell you about those ones, before they came it was the Oaks when the building got demolished
[00:43:04] Q: The Tavern Bar - was that known outside of Rainbow circles as a kind of a rainbow meeting place ?
[00:43:13] I'll put it this way, generally yes. But, having said that you'd have people mistakenly walking in, look around, and you would smile and ask them what they would like to drink. Then they started ooh ahhh not sure; it was like playing whoo and out they go and stumble into the Bistro Bar ! Bear in mind it was the middle of town at a hotel which had hotel rooms above and they come down to drink at the bar and one hot night some English guys mistakenly ended up in the Tavern …….and after a few drinks some guys took their shirts off and excited some gay locals – but really they were straight and really belonged in the Bistro ! But you just don’t know - I never worked on Sunday nights where you served hotel guests. Sometimes someone would come in and say “Shit there’s lot of poofs in here” and argue a bit and get shunted of the bar. I didn't experience much of this but then again, I wasn't a full time barman.
[00:44:34] Q: Just getting back to the Dorian, what kind of people would be going to the Dorian ?
[00:44:43] A: All age, any age. You get the familiar faces. I mean, really known around town. And businessmen. We had an MP who once came to have a look at the place. It wasn’t Joe Walding. He got caught out in a Palmerston North scandal. But no, there were other scandals - one in Christchurch with Gerald O’Brien was a complete farce. You know, the guy involved was a lovely guy and good politician but he got accused of things that, if looked at logically, just couldn't happen. In the end the teenage kids involved were out to get money. I don't even think they knew his name. But those sorts of things came out and I was really annoyed about that. There were other allegations, the Moyle affair in the 70s for example.
[00:45:48] Q: The 1970s had a number of politicians being accused of homosexuality or what have you and it was a kind of like using homosexuality as a political weapon was it not?
[00:46:03] A: Yes, it was. And with this I mean, Lindsey Yeo got called out about going innocently to a Lower Hutt toilet and he got accused of whatever. And it wasn't right. And I thought and sometimes wondered that when you look who was running the newspapers at the time I could see the slant because we were accused of being left wing; well we are not. But don't do a story that's not true and don't stack up. it is. I mean, ironically, the back of our building in Victoria Street overlooked the Public toilets by the Library that Moyle was supposed to have gotten into trouble and to be honest, I was so naive I did not know what went on. Something I did go to these places occasionally and do a standard do-do but I was aware in when I played cricket in the late 60s out at Kilbirnie there was toilets where there now is a swimming pool. We had finished early and I sat in the car and I was just going to go and I noticed guys were sitting in cars watching me and when I look back now I know what was happening to go in there. I didn’t go in as I was waiting for my friend’s game to finish. Every now and again a guy would come out and once one rushed back in within 2 minutes. I thought he must have got the trots or something. But no, that was what I learnt was a Cottage. It wasn't my scene. For me toilets were for toilets and nothing else.
[00:47:41] Q: So is the television New Zealand building on where the Central Police Station is now in Victoria Street ?
[00:47:49] A: No no, where the Public Library now is. If you look at photos. there was a Carpet shop. There was a office block next to it which was us (TV). We were production offices and preparation of programmes; and there was Waring Taylor Street studios.
Q: Was this before 1975.
A: Yes, we were there until April 1975 until Avalon opened. We did post production down there that wasn't studio based and then we went up to the studio and all the programmes played from Waring Taylor Street.
So we were there and I think it was a Liquor store under Carmen's and a shoe shop on the corner but you went upstairs to the Balcony. But the thing about that was I volunteered to work a lot of night shifts because I was doing studies and other things. TV had just bought a lot of equipment and editing machines but not enough so I had to start doing night shifts which was unusual in those days. Bear in mind there was no Sunday shopping and Friday late nights and all that. So I volunteered to do night shifts. That was fine. Come in at 5 and go home at 12. So it was having “morning tea” at 7pm, “lunch” about 10 o'clock at night. Well, on the second floor we were working, just me and my mate, and one time I was editing away and had to go to the toilet and the Mens’ toilets happened to be next to the urinal where you could look down on the Balcony below. And the window opened because it was a fire escape and all that. So anyway, when on a hot day like this, I'm looking out there and a voice suddenly goes “Hellooo, would you like some coffee?” And I look out and there's this lady sitting down, it was Carmen. Because it was a good offer and it was a strip club we climbed out the window, went down there and I've never seen people that have “fixtures” top and bottom before. And my colleague I cracked up and said “Oh, what is it?” They were getting dressed and making boobs up here and God knows what. And that was my first meeting of Carmen. She asked us what we were doing so later I was visiting the Coffee lounge in Vivian Street a lot she always asked me how TV was and things like that. She was really interested. And that's how we got a friendship going and how she got on Telethon but yeah, it was quite interesting that the first place we met was ironically just around the corner was the Moyle affair.
[00:50:21] Thinking of your first meeting with Carmen what was your first impression when you met Carmen ?
[00:50:29] My first impression was very professional; surprised to find it in Wellington. We were supposed to be a backwater you know, and when the first time when we met there was no Saturday day shopping, Pubs shutting at 10, you did not have the free and easy society we now have. But no, she was always glam.
I edited her final farewell programme on “Close Up”: we did one on her leaving New Zealand. Paul Ransley was the journalist and you know, she knew I was around, I was going to edit it and she was quite happy to talk about things. But one of the most moving scenes we managed to get her to do was we had to end the programme somehow. And I said to her you know are you going to leave the suitcase behind with all the stuff or are you're going to get a kind boy to carry it or whatever? And she said No, but I'll do something for you. So she sat in front of a mirror with a light behind and her back to the camera; you couldn't see her face, and the light went slowly down as she takes off her wig ………. stands up …… and slowly walks off into the darkness. To me that was really powerful because she had stood for Mayor on all sorts of things, she'd made claims about naked beaches and we would be doing more of that soon. She was you know, in the forefront as she had Bob Jones behind her - she was wise as he probably paid the bills but yeah my conclusion first time was that she was a lady knowing what she was doing; it was unusual but there's no way she could be running something like that alone. For example she had the lady at the back of the Balcony who used to, (I can't quite remember her name, I think it was Gypsy,) but she would spin the vinyl record tracks always say in a deeeeep voice “And now we have for your pleasure ladies and gentlemen, ……….. and then she would start some crackling record and off the track it would go and jump and she would say “Oh fuck” and start it back again. But yeah, those are things
and people I saw were entertained by that sort of thing. Lots of people came for that; some of the people surprised me - one of my cousins was a school teacher but he was sitting in the audience. There were people that you see around town going to a strip club. I went, well she had the gall to do it and it was sad it got demolished for a library. She ended up with a Curiosity Shop which was near the top of Cuba Street and that was another thing I didn't have much to do with as I never came up that part of town. But she was always there and had people talking about her.
[00:53:20] Q: Can you describe the interior of the Balcony?
[00:53:25] The Balcony had at the back. It was a big open hall type with seats, just normal seats, nothing fancy. Basically from the street side you came up stairs from Victoria Street. The DJ box had it’s back to Victoria Street. The stage was facing from east in those days. The stage was a big open area and they serve coffee and then drinks quietly somehow. A bottle of Coke may have an additive (spirit) with them as you notice the cap comes off quite quick ! Nobody got poisoned or anything like that. So you've got the music coming from the back and lots of lights on a big wide stage probably so many metres which I cannot remember, there was a curtain; but a lot of time they didn’t use the curtain. They come in from stage right and do their numbers and some would come into the audience as there was enough room to get amongst everybody. The dressing room was out the back. And of course you had, what I've described earlier, outside you could walk on a little bit of a deck which was the fire escape. Some of the shows surprised some people as to what it was the but I had an open mind, I mean, people live and people have got to go to work. I got invited to quite a few private functions which were “quite interesting”.
[00:55:06] Q: How did the police react to Carmen or in particular things like the Balcony ?
[00:55:13] A: I didn't notice this as I didn’t go there very much. I never saw Police cars outside even though you could park right outside. I think you could better follow up on that one with the Police guy that went to the 70th birthday party of Carmen. He really is the one that would be the expert because I honestly didn't have much contact with the Police – in those days as far as I was concerned Policemen wore Bobby hats and that was about it plus the grey Holden cars The only close thing I had with the Police was at the Dorian incident. That's when they were asking what your name and address was and all that shit. I did give my name straight. I wasn't doing like a few, did another way. The overall thing was I never really saw the Police do anything - I never saw any arrests – there were stories in a paper from time to time. But I never came across them in person.
[00:56:18] Q: Do you think that was more if the Police knew where you were so like seeing the Dorian or at Carmen's that they were quite happy for that
[00:56:31] A: I think the police accepted that these things were
happening and unless you went across the line or doing something that you shouldn't and you should have stopped. That was the thing. I don't think it was like we're gonna go out and find them like they did to the overstayers in Auckland. But bear in mind they were doing things they shouldn't really have done the way in that they did. But I don't think they had the resources to do it here but at the same time they're probably got more excited about chasing William Sutch and chasing Bill’s secret visits up Holloway Road than looking at the gay people if the gay people just kept to themselves. I think that would be my most important take on this.
[00:57:23] Q : What about Carmen’s International Coffee Shop on Vivian Street - Can you describe that ?
[00:57:29] Ironically that Salvation Army owned the building and land on one hand and on the other hand were very anti-gay. Many older gays have never forgiven them for what they did in protesting against the Homosexual Reform Bill and donate to that cause. I'm in a hell of a bind here because I was adopted after I was born in Bethany just down the road from where Carmen’s was and that was a Salvation Army Hospital for Unmarried Mums. Had that not been the case if they didn’t care for my young Mum I would not have had a good start to life as I later found out. So I was torn from not ignoring Salvation Army. But as you go down Vivian Street, you'd start at the Bluenote Bar on the corner. The next was the noisy music place now called Vahalla then there was the “Hole in the Wall” – very much a bit naughty and then there was Chrissie Witoko’s Evergreen.
[00:58:27] Okay, so this is actually heading East and we're going down from the intersection of Cuba and Vivian.
[00:58:35] Yes, On the opposite side was Emmanuel Papadopoulos office, a Sex shop on the corner with all different toys and inside that a lot of guys went in and just released themselves in the little booths watching something. Then you had the strip club above owned by Papadopoulos and opposite was the Purple Onion strip club. Across from that was the big Strip Club - I think it was owned by somebody in Auckland. But later it was renamed and became LIKS. Below was the Men’s Cigar Bar.
And that's now a Recycling shop. Next to that was Air New Zealand's head offices and then have got more little shops down to the corner. Carmen’s was actually further away from that. You had to physically get there if you're in the middle of the Red-Light District. Marion Street was the workers on the game. Marion Street at one stage had 60 people working there and if you headed back up Cuba Street up to Abel Smith Street the other girls were working their overnight thing. In the old days you could drive around in a circle down Cuba, up Marion; you can't do it now because of the way the Motorway is. So people would drive around and make a choice and then go back and pick up. Other times they didn’t go back. In my day living upstairs from the Bluenote Bar we had one of the girls do just that, walking the street. It was winter and she had a lovely new fur coat given to her by a friend in Auckland. She'd gone out to Marion Street in it one night early. We were watching the rugby in the flat. She loved the coat and said it was nice and warm and she came back about three quarters of an hour later and she was covered in eggs going everywhere. She said some bastards threw eggs at me. It was a very colourful pattern for her coat but not really nice! She had come back from walking the street. And they were driving in a car. You don't see that much of that these days. Hookups are on the Internet.
But Carmen’s was further away. She used to live partly upstairs at one stage. When you got to Carmen’s it was not razzle dazzle - you had to know it was there. In the door was a little window and the thing would open and I would usually hear “Hymmmmm – You look OK. You can come in”
[01:01:06] Q: Was that on the ground floor actually.
[01:01:08] A: Yeah, yeah, the upstairs was another issue !. So what you had inside is a flamboyant thing like an Egyptian parlour. I think you'll see photos of it but the thing was like we would be sitting there and someone else would be sitting nearby who had probably ordered something and while you were looking at others in the room that person had disappeared. They gone through the bloody curtain and gone up for a bit of how's your father ! That was one time I was there. If you wanted to go to the toilets you had to walk through the kitchen and there was always “Doris” doing the dishes. She'd always turn around and have a look at you and if you said something rude, bear in mind straights were going to Carmen’s (and Politicians), she would take a high-heel shoe off waving it at them and chase them through the Lounge - It was really quite funny when it was crowded. The Coffee Lounge itself really had something about it - there had a mystique about it -but this was Carmen – she knew everybody and greeted everyone -she would see me and ask how the television is going; how are you today ….. you know it's like that it might have been at your home. Another place like that was the Evergreen which was more or less where you got Toasties from and it was basically for the working people on the street. They did awesome big toasted sandwiches and things like that but Carmen’s was really, really good coffee and also the CocaCola which really tasted a lot like what I called Classic Coke – it had that extra formula !
You did not have to pay to get in. Once or twice we did for some reason I can’t remember. At the Balcony it was always a paid ticket.
Q: How much would it cost?
A: Of course God knows - maybe 50 cents. Mind you when I started way back at work I got paid between pay £525 a year which in those days may have been around $1,000.
[01:03:22] Q: Did people actually tip the dancers?
[01:03:26] A: People did yes They slipped a dollar in – I cannot remember what they were – it all changed ! I cannot remember how the hell we they did it. The one that I really liked was the girl and banana on a motorcycle, it was really funny thing to come and see. With the tipping I just can't ring a bell on how it was done because we had one penny and a half penny then there was 5 cents 10 cents and also had in those days shillings, florins and crowns !
[01:04:14] Q: It's not like putting a dollar bill in there ……
A: Nah, maybe in the breast cup or the undies or something like that. We had a lot of fun
Over time I got a lot more confident to be myself. Not in people's face, but definitely realistic and pretended it didn’t exist. That was a problem I had in the early days.
[01:04:42] Q: I'm thinking of say of when gay liberation things became a lot more political in the 70s. How did that impact on the Rainbow scene? Particularly, if you've got a generation or a number of generations actually, don't want to be particularly ruffling feathers. How did that work ?
[01:05:04] A: My problem I answering that question simply because I got married late 70s and we basically ended up out of town. So when the kids came along you're focused on them. Occasionally I would come and see Mal at a bar and he would always say hello and that but my honest scene in terms of clubs and everything from about late 70s to God knows when - 96 something like that - I don't know. I just wasn't on the (Rainbow) scene. I went on a lot of business trips and I might have gone and had drinks in a gay bar with colleagues. When I went to Auckland on business, it was at the Empire with Dudley playing the piano; he was an Air NZ airline steward in those days. You get to know people like that. And it was comforting as they're just doing what they want to do. But no, I was more or less off the scene.
[01:06:03] Q: What was it like then seeing the media coverage of say, Homosexual Law reform in the mid 80s? Because there was a lot of coverage.
[01:06:13] A: Yes there was. They were very brave. We had Norman Jones (Invercargill MP against the Reform) - he was wicked with his bloody walking stick flying around, you wouldn’t want to come across the range of it. But he knew it. There were really, strong feelings, the SSI will be numbered, our job was to come across it. And I thought the people were very brave that were getting out in support of the Bill. Ironically, David Hindley was one who worked for TV at the time. I did not really know David outside of work, I never knew he was taking photos and things like that (of the protests). A few years ago I went over to Vietnam and Cambodia and I knew he was in Cambodia. We caught up and he has done some amazing things documenting the protest era.
Archives and things like that are important. I moved into sorting out setting up the Television Archives in New Zealand in 1982. And that has been 10 years of my life. So you get to know the importance of holding onto stuff and all that sort of thing. And balancing working out with computerisation what to do. The idea of making access to it at that time in 1985 is a hell of a lot easier with computers and the Internet now. I'm just looking out o k f the blue sky while we did this interview, and I'm thinking I've done a lot of blue sky stuff. You had to go on a pedestal and just think way back then and basically in my blue sky theming was that Archives had to be accessible to everyone. What’s the point of storing all this stuff ? And we used to have people who were also doing their own TV “archive” keeping stuff to look after but not looking at the other side of it. Money's required and you had to get out there and get some money. In my day I had stuff everywhere. So first thing was rounding items up off a wharf in Dunedin; out of a Panel Beater’s shop in Naenae sharing storage; things like that. But it made me very aware as it grew I went to Conferences and I thought, gee, this is a big industry, a very big one. And you end up writing the rules for the TV collections in New Zealand and people like Jonathan Dennis (of the Film Archive), were helping me alongside. We (TVNZ) took over National Film Unit in 1990. My role there was to assist the purchase. People were upset with the fact TVNZ had bought it. And I said no, what I want for New Zealand was the fact that they had NZ Newsreels from 1941 to current day under one roof. and in one place. And that, protected. I mean if TVNZ got sold to overseas we'd have to think of all those sorts of things. A lot of things you go through makes you feel important. And that's why I've kept a lot of notes and notebooks I've got on things. Photos, some of the photos I go back and look at are amazing. So your life goes along, at times it goes fast and things are put aside. I mean, I'm trying to look for photos for you right now. And I'm know somewhere amongst about 20,000 photos they are there. And I've also backed them up, but where on the backup disc are they – on that disk or that one or that one are over there !???!
[01:09:37]Q: Let's just call this one ! Earlier you mentioned about HIV. And I wonder, are you able to talk about how you became aware of that in the 80s?
[01:09:47] A: Yeah, we just started hearing stories about gay people dying and reality of it to me personally, I just saw something happening. I didn't see it as affecting me because I was in a married environment with kids and not out in the gay community activities as such but at the same time I was in broadcasting. So, as I said earlier about Mark Westmoreland I did not know, they said it was cancer, I did not know that stage was HIV. I knew he was gay, there was no problem about that but I didn't realise that was early days that happened, and there was a couple of people I knew. I only took an interest in a sense that “Who do I know that could be possibly hurt by this and need support. But it didn't really happen. In later days of course we have Body Positive. I've been helping Ron Irvine with Sponsor stuff and helped his team as I met people who actually had it, and supporting and sympathising with them - not being sloppy or anything like that but just saying I've got to go for a ride up to some barbecue - would you love to come. Not ostracising and putting to one side not wanting to know, I never went down that track. But the HIV thing to me I wasn’t watching much TV. I was making TV at the time, but I didn't watch it much !
But later I worked in the Archives and saw lots of it. By then I wasn't making programmes. So no, I just can't really comment too much on it. But I knew it was bad.
01:11:31] Q Do you think there was ostracism coming from Rainbow communities to people with HIV?
[01:11:37] A I think there was (at the time). I just think that there were people scared, you know, that they could get it. And if somebody's got a doubt they look 50 yards away from them you know, “I don't want to know this person” Then there's a lot of others who gave support. But it was a big unknown. I mean, you didn't know quite what it was. And we knew it affected gay people. But then we had that lovely little girl that got it. And then we had other things showing it was not just gay. Come on, this is a blood thing. And that's why when I was on the Rainbow Executive Board I got a bit annoyed because if you're doing blood test, you're taking blood donation in surely that blood must be tested before you put it into somebody. So why stop a person, a gay guy, doing it? Do a blood test to check the blood is fine and move on. It doesn't matter where it comes from. I don't know if they can technically say that it is not in there. But all I'm saying is I feel ostracised in that I could not go and donate blood. Some people can't donate blood anyway. It's like putting a mask on or things like that but with the latest COVID immunisation for example there are people who can't get immunised. What I'm saying is that they can’t take the vaccinations. But no, I got annoyed that there was people here who should just shut up their mouth up and think there for the Grace of God could go I. They should sit back and by doing so learn a bit more and say you can pick it up that way, talking to them saying you are not going to pick up AIDS by giving them a lift in a car down to the movie theatre or going to movies once or twice to get them out of the house. You're not going to get AIDS. And that basically I don't think people understood that totally.
[01:13:39] Q: I think it has some really strong parallels for where we are now dealing with the COVID epidemic. We have what, just coming up to two years into the COVID epidemic. And interestingly, when in touch would work in Wellington, we haven't yet had an outbreak of the Delta variant.
[01:14:02] A: It doesn't seem to have happened. Maybe because we are remote. But it's not been picked up in the waters.
[01:14:08] Q: How has COVID you think impacted on local rainbow communities?
[01:14:20] A: Made them cautious? There has been comparisons. I think some people will say of older ages pretty bad. I think on all of this, we need to take stock of where we're at. I mean, let's face it in early days of AIDS some people were not taking precautions and things like that until there were quite a few people getting seriously sick. So it was one of those things that were like, do I have the flu injection or not at my age. I had it once and it laid me flat for four days. Maybe I shouldn’t have had it and haven’t since.
But I also took care of making sure that I stayed away from people coughing and things like that. But my Doctor says basically I'm quite a healthy soul so whenever I do get something I'll probably fight it quite well. But then again, I've seen healthy people that have died just recently very quickly. So you just don't know. The answer to your question really is that Rainbow people I know are pissed off with people who don't wear a masks and what you saw on television yesterday, I don't think you would have seen a gay person there. (at Parliament protest).
[01:15:39] Q: That was a kind of a messy protest outside Parliament and it was like anti-vaxxers, anti-mandate, anti-government and suggestions ……….
A: And that it was a return to back to the Communist Party. I mean, oh, really it just got out of control. I'll give you an example with the demonstration thing. We went to the Black Shirts thing of Destiny Church in 2004. I was there – after it was over I was standing up near the steps and there were a lot of Maori boys there in the black shirts. I don't think a lot really knew what the hell they were doing there to be honest. As we were walking away down to town a couple of the boys were walking together and asked “Sir do you know where the bars are ?” I asked are you of age and they said they were 18 and 20. I told them a lot of bars are all up town. If you want an all night bar you’ve got the Bluenote. They said they were down for the trip to Welly and somewhere there are some cuzzies here. At this we got on the bus and said maybe we will see you later tonight. So to put a long story short and not going to too much detail to it they ended up in the gay-friendly Bluenote Bar that night. I mean, it showed the hypocrisy of what went on at Parliament that day ….. they did not have a clue about the depth of the protest in that we were the nice people, the very people they were protesting about ! It was bullshit. Some had really come wanting to seek work and also catch up with friends who happen to be on the streets as trannies. The thing was it got me, this was all bullshit, absolute bullshit. So basically, to me, what was the hypocrisy of that. The other hypocrisy was of Brian Tamati when he turned up to a fundraiser for Georgina Byers who was having to have a Kidney transplant. It was held in the Hania Street Greek place. It was a big thing – when he walked in with his wife Hannah and Jevan under his wing - the whole show stopped. You could hear a pin drop - there was about 100 people there if not more, all asking what the hell was he doing here? And there was a table booked for them and Jevan, in all his wisdom, came over to me and said come and meet my friends. And I'm going Oh my God because I had known Georgina a long time and wondered what she was thinking. But she managed to thank us all for coming. Brian Tamaki is in his 60s now – he should know what's black and what is white. From my experience of it I see those American things on television like big gatherings, and you see the Harley bikes and the souped up cars and matching that back home you see the Tamatis swanning around down Queenstown and God knows what when they are supposed to be in Auckland. Yeah, it's just a different, different world to me. I just don't comprehend it in a gay sense. And considering that we're trying to get the Maori people vaccinated to save to try and reduce impact on young ones. If he is leading people he should lead them to the right water. No, it's to me, that it's just weird.