A defaced billboard on the railway bridge embankment at Bridge Road as it rounds the bend near Burton Street Glebe. The photo was taken in the mid-1980s by Wayne Carveth. The graffiti alludes to the French government’s 1985 sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour.

by Wayne Carveth, from Bulletin 4/2026 (June)

There was one response to the mystery photo from the May Bulletin 3/2026. I took the photo in the mid-eighties. Virginia Simpson-Young provided a correct, detailed and educative answer:

The billboard is on the embankment of the then-defunct goodsline railway bridge at Bridge Road, as it rounds the bend near Burton Street. The billboard is an advertisement for pantyhose made by DIM (a French manufacturer of ‘legwear’ – I found their website online). The billboard depicts a reclining blonde bronzed woman (it was the ’80s), naked apart from a pair of DIM pantyhose. The text reads ‘Feel French from the waist down’.

The graffiti says ‘WEAR FLIPPERS’. My guess is that this is a reference to the bombing of Greenpeace’s ship, Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland Harbour in 1985. The saboteurs were secret service frogpersons sent by the French government to do away with the irritant that was the Rainbow Warrior, which persistently interfered with French nuclear testing in the Pacific. The explosion killed one crew member. As those of us who were around at the time will recall, this dastardly act of bastardry had significant diplomatic ramifications.

Virginia went in-depth with AI whose answer didn’t recognise the cleverness of the two-word graffiti referring to the atrocity. The most relevant AI response was, ‘Cultural Commentary: By adding “Wear Flippers,” the artist was likely mocking the vanity and pretension of the “Feel French” promise, turning a sexualized fashion statement into a joke about going for a swim.’