Photo Recall: Looking back on a big, hairy generation gap

The young couple attending an art exhibition in Auckland nearly 40 years ago caught the eye of the Herald photographer but the resulting picture caused family ructions. Photo / NZ Herald, Photo Researcher / Emma Walter

When the photograph of Anna Ziman, then 20, with her bearded, long-haired boyfriend appeared in the Herald, Ziman's father accused her of "dragging the Ziman name through the mud".

"What name?" Ziman laughs now from her London home.

Boyfriend Dave Wickham's parents, living in Rotorua, were also startled to see a photo of their hairy son in their morning newspaper.

Ziman and Wickham were admiring a work by Max Ernst at the opening of a surrealist exhibition at the Auckland City Art Gallery in July 1972 when their picture was taken. Today, a clean-shaven Wickham chuckles at the memory, hastily pointing out that he wasn't actually smoking the church-warden pipe clamped between his lips. "Just posing," he laughs. "I was a member of the Pipe Society."

At the time, the couple were living in Ponsonby, then a rundown "student land". Ziman was studying at Auckland University and beginning what was to be a 35-year career as an actress.

He was a political activist working for Hart (Halt All Racist Tours), a protest group set up to stop rugby tours involving South Africa.

As Auckland area officer for Hart, Wickham was heavily involved in persuading then Prime Minister Norman Kirk to cancel the 1973 Springbok tour of New Zealand, at a time when the South Africans refused to play against Maori players and their own team was whites only.

The next year, Ziman headed off on her OE, ending up in London. Meanwhile, Wickham and some "radical" mates applied for the territorials - the long hair had to go - hoping to change the army from within. They failed, he laughs.

He then travelled through Africa and Europe, as Hart's international officer, gathering support for an African boycott of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Canada.

Wickham joined Ziman in London, living in a rundown Victorian terrace in inner London, but eventually they parted ways. Ziman stayed on to work on her acting career. Wickham went back to New Zealand but the pair always stayed in touch.

Wickham later married Mary-Ellen and had three children. The Wickhams have stayed with Ziman in her London home - she ended up buying the terrace house and restoring it - and Ziman has stayed with the Wickhams during visits to New Zealand.

Five years ago, Ziman retrained as a counsellor after battling breast cancer. She now uses her drama background to run Open to the Goddess workshops for women, something she would also like to do in New Zealand.

After years of working for unions, Wickham now works as an employment advocate for People First, an organisation for people with learning disabilities. Despite his years with Hart, he was always interested in rugby and will be watching the Rugby World Cup, although he's not optimistic about the All Blacks' chances.

"Once it [rugby] went professional, everybody else catches up."