Topps suited up for battle

Photo / Yanse Martin

As the new Topp Twins documentary breaks box office records, the two remember an earlier encounter with the flashbulbs facing court charges for obstructing a footpath while busking.

Ever the performers, Lynda and Jools Topp arrived at Auckland District Court in a pink Zephyr, in men's suits, briefcases under arms.

It was March 24, 1990, and the Herald's Yanse Martin was a member of the waiting pack of photographers, as the pair played up to the cameras.

The large briefcases contained their lunches, says Lynda Topp. The suits were their own. "Good young lesbians of that time all had suits in their wardrobes."

On an evening five months earlier, as the twins sang The Last of the Big-Time Spenders on Queen St, a constable had ordered them to shut down because the gathered crowd was obstructing traffic.

"There was two lesbians and a car and a dog and they called for back-up," Lynda recalls. "The more police that arrived, the more the public started coming over, so it just got bigger and bigger."

The twins were arrested and spent a few hours in the police cells, where they sang the blues before being released about 4am Saturday.

Drawing on TV courtroom virtuoso Perry Mason and radical politics, they defended themselves.

"It was sort of just another adventure for us," says Lynda. "We were radicals. It was almost an honour to be heading into the courtroom to defend ourselves - it was like power to the people.

"We never obstructed; if they'd charged us with causing an obstruction they may have had a case, but they didn't."

The judge agreed and threw out the case, but required the twins to arrange for police escorts when busking on Queen St in future.

The story made it into the New York Times, which questioned why buskers were getting arrested in New Zealand. "It wasn't just a criminal act, it was a political act as well," Lynda says. "We never ever wanted to harass the police that night, but they didn't do any favours for themselves by shutting down a couple of girls who were just having fun and making people smile."