Meet two of Arrowtown’s biggest characters – one a member of one of our most iconic bands, The Exponents, the other a former news photographer who found himself unwittingly caught up in the Prince Andrew-Virginia Giuffre scandal. Together, they have formed a close bond as friends and business partners.
Michael Thomas - Tommy, as he’s known around these parts - calls the whole experience surreal.
It features a scandalised royal prince, a disgraced sex trafficker, a grainy photograph and – unwittingly – Thomas, who hails from South Dunedin and now lives in small-town New Zealand.
He’s been a professional photographer for decades, plying his trade here and in the United Kingdom, notably as a news photographer for the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
He’s taken thousands and thousands of images and covered major events such as the Olympics and Rugby World Cup.
But despite his prowess, he readily admits he will be remembered for just one photograph – the grainy print of Prince Andrew with his arm around then 17-year-old Virginia Roberts (later Virginia Giuffre) in 2001.
You’ll know the photograph – it’s been used on countless news websites and in newspapers and television reports across the globe since it came to public attention, thanks in large part to Thomas, 14 years ago.
The photo – believed to have been taken at Ghislaine Maxwell’s house in London – was the leading exhibit in a firestorm of allegations against the prince and Maxwell’s then boyfriend, US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Giuffre claimed that Epstein trafficked her for sex with Prince Andrew, an allegation the prince has always denied.
Thomas photographed the original print for the Mail on Sunday, during an exclusive interview with Giuffre in Australia – where she lived – in 2011.
She had it among a pile of images; Thomas picked it out, photographing it more than 30 times (just to be safe) for the newspaper.
Some years later, Prince Andrew tried to cast doubt on the authenticity of the image, saying it was a copy of a copy and that he had no recollection of being photographed.
Those comments threw an unwitting Thomas into a media frenzy.
“I was holding the original photo in my hand. It was a normal 6x4-inch print that you would have got from any developer at the time,” he told his former newspaper in 2023.
He was able to produce further evidence – he had also taken a photograph of the back of the photo, showing it had been processed and developed in London. It has a stamp: “000 #15 13Mar01 Walgreens One Hour Photo”.
“I used to get mad emails from people telling me they were from camera clubs and it was a fake photo and it was this, and it was that,” Thomas tells the Herald.
“I flew over there [to the UK] and did an interview because I had the picture of the back. The reporter was able to trace where it was developed and get everything like that… to put to bed the whole argument about Photoshopping.”
Thomas and the Mail on Sunday worked closely with Giuffre in 2011, putting her in hiding and shielding her from rival media as the newspaper broke its exclusive interview.
“She was quite damaged - she was a very gentle sort of woman,” recalls Thomas.
“Gently spoken, quite nervy, but sweet, you know. When I met her, she had her three kids, and she was a great mum.
“It was a really difficult time for her, and she was very frightened at the time of how powerful he [Epstein] was.
“I think it was disgusting, the stuff that she had to go through. Her story was true. There is no doubt her story was true. The photo was true.”
Giuffre died in April this year – her family has said she committed suicide.
Thomas is saddened by her entire ordeal and said he had always been careful about talking about the photograph.
“I didn’t do any of the TV stuff… I was always a bit wary, and especially wary about what she’d think. I was really careful.
“I always tried to be nice about her and to tell my truth about it all.
“She wrote me an email about a year ago and actually wrote in it, ‘thanks very much, you’ve always supported me…’, which I was absolutely delighted about because it was one of the things that had really worried me.”
Thomas reflects on his own involvement in the saga with some bemusement.
“I always think I’m Michael from South Dunedin, who lives in Arrowtown, and I see this photo published everywhere.
“It’s all quite surreal, really. I basically copied a photo on a kitchen table in Australia. And this is what it’s turned into.”
At a corner table in one of Arrowtown’s most iconic pubs and eateries, The Fork and Tap, Thomas and Dave Gent are holding court, ribbing each other about their own colourful back stories.
“Were you in a band?” pokes Thomas to Gent, who happens to be Kiwi music royalty, as a founding member and bass guitarist for The Exponents.
Thomas pushes further: “Does the bass count as a member?”.
Gent more than holds his own, taking a swipe at Thomas’ skills as a professional photographer: “I get this from a guy who just [presses a button] on a digital thing that does it all now. To be fair, with AI, I can take photos better than him now – I just need to type in what it is”.
The pair are great mates, a friendship forged after they fell into business together, almost by accident, as co-directors of Arrowtown Brewing eight years ago.
The concept was dreamed up by Gent, Thomas and late businessman Tim Hemingway over a few pints in the very pub we’re sitting in today – Gent had just returned from the US and seen the growing interest in craft beer.
Gent tells a funny story of how they had an early party to launch the new company, but no actual product at that point: “We didn’t even know how to make beer.” So he and Thomas sat with a bath-tub full of bottles from another brewery, peeling off labels and putting on their own. “Everyone was going, ‘Oh, we really like your beer - you guys know what you’re doing’,” laughs Gent.
These days, the beer is well and truly their own. The company now has a small brewery, out the back of the nearby Slow Cuts eatery, and a young brewer, Conor McCloskey. Their website lists five different beers, including an IPA, Sawpit Pilsner, a lager and Lake Haze IPA.
Thomas says the venture – Navman founder Sir Peter Maire and Xero co-founder Hamish Edwards are also shareholders – is a “bit of fun”.
“I always describe it as David and I being two unemployable people that just needed something to feel relevant again,” he laughs.
In reality, the venture is more of a love story for Arrowtown – the pair are focused on the local area they firmly now call home. They are wary of expansion and introducing additional costs, such as freight, when margins are already tight.
“I think there was this glory thing of everyone thinking ‘I’ll start a brewery, and then the big brewery’s going to come in and buy us’,” says Gent.
“But those days are gone now.”
Another well-known local described the pair to me as “the unofficial mayors of Arrowtown”.
Thomas wasn’t keen on that description; Gent laughingly lapped it up.
The music legend has been in town for the past 25 years.
While The Exponents disbanded some years ago, they regularly reunite for special gigs or short tours.
Gent reveals they’ll be at Synthony in Auckland next year.
“It’s fun playing with the guys,” says Gent.
“Jordan [lead singer Jordan Luck] plays all the time. He’s got his own band. He played down at Ayrburn [in Arrowtown] so I just jumped up and played some songs with him.
“We’re all really good friends – it’s the same four guys since 1981.”
It’s clear he holds the band close to his heart, and still gets a buzz when he hears some of their anthems – think, Why Does Love Do This To Me, Victoria or Who Loves Who the Most – playing at sports events.
With Arrowtown’s population sitting at just under 3000, I was reliably informed that these two know most people in town.
“There’s a proper mix of people. If you go to Auckland and you go to a bar, everyone in that bar is the same sort of person,” says Gent.
“They work in similar industries and earn the same amount of income, they do the same thing. Whereas as soon as you get into a place like this, you’ve got normal people, plumbers, people that actually work for a living.
“You’ve got billionaires and then you’ve got tourists, and it’s all in a big mix. And everyone does mix.”
The pair tell of A-list stars such as Jason Momoa and Ed Sheeran mixing with locals.
Thomas says of the town: “Everyone knows each other, right through from the farmers to the billionaires. New millionaires come in here - you get all sorts and nobody’s treated any better or any worse.
“It’s a really good mixing pot. Everybody gets treated with the same disrespect! I actually mean that.”
Gent and Thomas had a laugh the other night, when Gent donned a NZ First pin that a mate had given him - the pair say they are about the only two in town who vote Labour - and hammed it up as they spoke to two actual members of the NZ First party.
“We’re sitting there, and these two guys then drag Shane Jones over. He said, ‘The boys tell me there are two supporters over here’.”
Gent didn’t let on. “To be fair, he was nice.”
Arrowtown has certainly seen more than a fair share of hospitality developments. There’s the Ayrburn hospitality precinct, Swiftsure by Man o War, and even the expansion of Queenstown’s famous Fergburger, with its Fergbutcher in town.
The pair have no shortage of opinions on the pressures facing the small town – and their concerns about basic infrastructure not keeping pace with housing development.
Property prices – and interest from foreign buyers – are soaring.
The median price of a house is now well over $2 million, but there are more dramatic trends at play at the higher end of the market.
“Everything’s going to go up to $5 million,” says Thomas.
“Those $4 million houses are $5 million because there’s a market for them.
“My friend’s a property buyer’s agent. She’s getting people from America and Australia [who] just come in and say we’ve got $10 million to spend. So all these houses that were $7 million are just going up to 10. It’s quite incredible.
“If you buy a knockdown shack - not even a great section in the sun or anything like that – you won’t pay less than $1.7 million. And that’s knocked down. These are old Southland farmers’ cribs. There’s no insulation, but they still get a lot of foreigners, a lot of Aucklanders, a lot of Australians.”
He says some locals are being forced out by the rising prices, with the school roll falling.
Gent’s own kids went to the school. He says Arrowtown still has a village vibe – a community where “you know everyone” – but nearby Queenstown’s growth has been massive. He says he used to always go into Queenstown; now he might be there only twice a year.
Thomas – who has been here since 2005, after returning from the UK - agrees Arrowtown still has a community spirit. “It’s a quirky little village.”
That means he’ll often be asked by those in the know about his most famous assignment.
“I was getting an operation the other week on an eye, and I’m lying there… the woman’s operating on the eye, and all she could do was talk about Prince Andrew.”
And his own views on the prince?
“Oh, I think everybody knows what he’s like - he’s just very entitled. From what I know, he’s not a very nice person.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor.