King, in court: ‘I only had three months to put that together and it was the third design attempt and, oh boy, it was a tricky one but we got it, I got it sorted, and I got a bonus, enough to put a deposit on my house.’ A property search confirmed that King was listed as the owner. The blinds were pulled up on one window in Courtroom 15 at King’s trial; it allowed the jury an intimate view of the lovely exotic trees across the road on Constitution Hill.
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The good job, the house on the hill — the late 1970s were King’s halcyon years. He bought a yellow Ferrari Dino, so low that you practically had to lie down to drive it. ‘He was anal about that car,’ said radio announcer Bryan Staff, who used to see King around town. ‘I remember him screaming at a gas station attendant for daring to touch the windscreen — “Do you realise how much this fucking thing is worth, you moron?”, that sort of thing.’
A friend said, ‘When I first met Derek and got talking, he told me he had two ambitions and he had fulfilled them before his mother died. One was to design the School of Architecture and the other was to own a Ferrari.’ He told her that he couldn’t afford to insure it, and stored it in the garage like a prized jewel. Once, though, he took another woman for a drive in it to Hamilton; King floored it, drove at insane speeds, until the woman begged him to stop at Mercer. She got out, and never spoke to him again.
He liked danger, excitement. King, soft and cuddly in his denim jumpsuits, became an unlikely player in the cultural explosion of punk rock. In fact, he was an impressario of punk. He put on concerts, and famously hired a bus to take six bands, including the Suburban Reptiles and The Scavengers, to play the New Wave Special concert in Wellington. A 1979 Eyewitness documentary on punk rock — it’s online at NZ On Screen — includes startling footage of King sitting at the front of the bus, giving a long-winded philosophical treatise on the meaning of punk. ‘Any extreme movement in society is generally misunderstood,’ he instructs. The passengers are spotty youth, 19, 20, cool in their leathers and mohair. There’s Johnny Volume, there’s Zero. And there’s King, ‘the famous young architect’, a groover in his light beard and ringleted haircut.
The silver Newmans bus is filmed coming into Wellington down Ngauranga Gorge on a cold, drab winter’s morning. Eyewitness presenter Neil Roberts says in the voice-over, ‘Auckland is the centre of punk in New Zealand, and a young Auckland promoter decided to spread the good word south. Derek King gathered about him the crème de la crème of Auckland punkdom, hired a bus, and set off for the Wellington Town Hall. His mission — to bring the punk experience to the capital, a sort of 1978 punk odyssey.’
The show went off, and Wellington took to punk with flair and energy. Strange that it’s thanks in large part to King, whose name also features in the credits of another landmark moment in New Zealand punk — the Ripper Records album AK 79, then received with awe and as a kind of manifesto of punk, with classic tracks such as ‘I Am A Rabbit’ by Proud Scum and Toy Love’s ‘Squeeze’. King was right in the middle of that ‘extreme movement’, making things happen. Respect or some kind of acknowledgement was surely due from survivors of the punk wars. None was forthcoming.
Paul Rose, who managed punk bands including The Newmatics, remembered King at venues such as the Windsor Castle in Parnell, and the Rhumba Bar on Victoria Street. ‘He’d bring his camera and stand at the back and just watch. He was always observing. He was a crowd watcher, not a band watcher. Always on the outside.’
‘Always on the outside looking in,’ echoed the great society queen Judith Baragwanath, who was also on the punk scene. ‘A bit shady. Secretive. Furtive.’
‘We used to call him Fish Fingers for the way he chased young girls,’ said a former bootboy made good, too respectable for his name to be used in King’s company. ‘An odious character. His demeanour was just sleazy. He was always your best friend! It was a mix of all that plus his fast-growing reputation as predator. Girls knew to keep away.’
The last time he saw him was a couple of years ago, at the Auckland Film Festival: ‘He made my skin crawl. I disliked him intensely.’
Paul Rose said the last time he saw King was at the 2011 Laneways concert in Aotea Square. ‘There he was with his camera again. By himself. Watching the crowd. Same old dirty Derek.’
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After designing the conference centre, King lived in Singapore for three years, as an architectural consultant. He returned to his home on the hill in 1982, and set himself up as a photographer — he approached pretty young girls, and offered to shoot their modelling portfolios.
One such sweet thing was novelist Charlotte Grimshaw. ‘He got me into his house once and took Polaroids,’ she said. ‘I was 15 or 16. He spoke of modelling jobs, then suggested we adjourn to the bedroom. I fought him off, and fled, laughing.’ She thinks she may have stolen something on her way out. ‘Could it have been a Walkman? Surely not a toaster.’
How many other girls did he try it on with? How many submitted? The answer to both idle speculations might be any number, including zero. Maybe he just liked to watch. Bruce Jarvis, who managed the film-processing lab Prism, developed King’s photos throughout that decade. ‘They were only ever of young girls,’ he said.
Jarvis found an envelope containing negatives
