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An unexpected friendship
This helmet was customised and gifted to Carmen Rupe (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Haua, Ngāti Heke-a-Wai, 1936-2011) on her 70th birthday in 2006 by Trevor Morley (1943-2020), a former police vice squad detective. Her birthday party was held at the Star Boating Club in Wellington.
Trevor's daughter had decorated the helmet by painting it purple, adding silver glitter ferns, the police logo, and diamantes. The helmet was swirled with a pink feather boa when Trevor presented it to Carmen and inducted her as an honorary member of the Wellington vice squad.
Carmen was a flamboyant transgender women, performer, business owner (including brothels) and anti-discrimination activist who became a cultural icon in New Zealand and Australia. The detective got to know Carmen in the late 1960s and '70s when she was the proprietor of Carmen's International Coffee Lounge and The Balcony Nightclub in Wellington. He arrested her for running a brothel in a sting operation. Despite this, the two became life long friends. 'Morley's liberal views and compassion for the plight of sex workers and others were ahead of the police culture at the time' (1).
On the inside of the helmet Mr Morley has written: 'To Carmen (aka T.D.R) - Happy 70th Birthday – and thanks for the memories!! (Former) Detective Trevor W.A. Morley (aka TWAM)’ along with his police number and dated 7th September 2006, Wellington, New Zealand.
In an interview following Carmen’s passing in 2011, Mr Morley commented:
It’s not very often that you have a detective appearing at the funeral service of someone who he had arrested, but I looked upon that as a mark of her respect and my own respect for her because as myself and my sergeant used to say "if everybody was as good and cooperative as Carmen was we wouldn’t have had much work to do" (2).
When Carmen’s collection was presented to Te Papa posthumously in 2011 at a powhiri, Trevor Morley carried the helmet onto the marae.
(1) A passion for righting wrongs. The Dominion Post, 18 April 2020, p A11.
(2) https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/310452/carmen%27s-silhouette-lights-up-cuba-st-again