Boys on best behaviour for chat

Lady Thea Muldoon still remembers her visit to Wellington's Black Power marae after her husband's memorial service, write. Photo / Martin Hunter

Sent to cover Lady Thea Muldoon's visit to a Wellington marae in 1992, photographer Martin Hunter tentatively approached two burly Black Power boys.

Would they mind, he asked very politely, posing for a photograph with the recently-widowed Lady Thea?

Next, he asked the diminutive former first lady if she would mind sandwiching herself between the lads.

In other words, Hunter admits, it was a classic "jack up".

But having positioned the unlikely trio for a photo, Lady Thea and Black Power members Bumpa Mahauraki and Lani Clark settled down for a good old natter, which continued long after Martin had finished shooting.

Lady Thea was invited to visit the Black Power marae after a memorial service held in honour of her late husband, Sir Robert Muldoon, Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984.

Having established an affinity with Black Power, which dated back to the 70s, Muldoon was held in high esteem by the gang, whose members performed a thunderous haka at his funeral in the Auckland Town Hall and, a month later, at a memorial service in Wellington Cathedral.

Lady Thea remembers that marae visit, nearly 17 years' ago.

When she arrived, a tangi was being held for a 5-year-old boy killed in a car accident.

The two men sat next to her, talking about the boy and she remembers them as being "quite polite".

"I think they're always at ease when you're invited in," she says.

"It's only when you have got something against them that they get fierce.

"It was quite a nice little chat ... they were upset about Bob's dying."