As a teenager in the early 1950's Anna Hoffman mixed with some of the leading lights of the New Zealand underworld. Later, in Kings Cross in Australia, she associated with a woman regarded as a witch and occult leader. Deported, Hoffman became something of an Auckland celebrity. She tells her story to Jerome Cvtanovich.
Hoffman relates the story of how at the age of seventeen in the mid-1950s she met George Walker for the first time when he insisted on buying her a pair of shoes. Back then Hoffman explains, he was just a man that lived at home with his mother and recalls how they would play duets on the piano together. Hoffman describes how George met his end, becoming part of the famous Bassett Road Murders case which directly connected him to the Auckland underworld.
Hoffman describes how she spent much of her time at Sommerville’s Milk Bar, a popular haunt for Auckland’s artistic bohemian crowd. She was present when “Freddy” Foster murdered a young woman in the bar. Keen to avoid being part of the case Hoffman says she left the city for Sydney after being invited by a friend, seaman and “queen” called Boadicea.
Although a stowaway on a steamship, Hoffman had no fear about travelling on her own, feeling only excitement about leaving New Zealand. Once in Sydney, Hoffman found herself either at home in The Rocks, at violin lessons, at work or hanging out in the Arabian Coffee Bar in Kings Cross. She took to wearing all black which was frowned upon by anyone outside of her crowd at the time.
Hoffman was fascinated by the paintings of Rosalyn Naughton adorning the walls of The Apollonian Café and sought her out. Noughton was labelled a witch because of her cult involvement and her facial features. She was a pantheist and wore flamboyant gypsy styled clothing. Noughton was disliked by the police because of her ‘obscene’ paintings so Hoffman became of interest through her association.
Hoffman was charged with vagrancy and sentenced to two months in prison in Long Bay under psychiatric observation. In court Hoffman refused to swear on the bible, declaring herself a Buddhist and explains how the magistrate announced that indicated what sort of mental state she was in.
Hoffman describes her time in prison as both sobering and frightening.
After her release she returned to Kings Cross where she had become something of a misfit celebrity. The police however wanted rid and had her arrested for calling one of them a peasant. The magistrate sent her back to New Zealand on the Wanganella. Meantime news of her clash with authorities in Australia had made it into ‘The Truth’ newspaper and she had a reputation by the time she arrived in Auckland.
Hoffman began work as a hostess in a nightclub, the Arabian run by Leon Aldrin. Billy Farnell played the grand piano. Hoffman started wearing chic clothes designed by her friends and acquired a sports car which caught the attention of the police. In August 1960 Hoffman was convicted for selling marijuana to an undercover policeman in Auckland and sentenced to six months in prison. Hoffman describes how she arrived at the trial with an entourage of friends, goats and monkey from the Arabian club.
She fondly reminisces the freedom of the 1960s and the calculated effort to feed into the authorities outrage and flaunt herself. The song, “Anna Hoffman” was by Australian’s Peter Hicks and Geoff Francis [edited out of online audio due to copyright restrictions].