With my usual excellent sense of timing I have decided to make my contribution to the Intenscity event some days after it has been dismantled but I hope Wellington history aficionados will appreciate it anyway.

This short video features Brian Sergent playing his well-loved character Gavin Soper (Air New Zealand Cabin Steward) for TV3's Nightline in (I think) 1992 or 3. Gavin is celebrating the impending completion of the refurbished Te Aro Park, the cost of which was a source of some local controversy at the time. The other great contemporary issue he alludes to is the number of glue-sniffing street-kids predominating around the Te Aro area. Simultaneous with the beautification of Te Aro Park was the WCC scheme to house these “poor glue-addled kiddies” in a couple of converted shipping containers on waste ground south of the Basin Reserve.

Written by Brian Sergent; directed by Jonathan Brough; produced by Jonathan Brough, Gordon Harcourt and myself.