ANNA THOMAS
When Anna Thomas landed her job presenting Fair Go alongside Kevin Milne in the mid-1990s, the head honchos at the TV network suggested she could do with losing a few kilos. The producer at the time wasn’t having a bar of it and Anna and fellow Fair Go star Raewyn Rasch ended up starring on a Weekly cover that read: “Damn the dieting”.
“We were size 14 and proud of it,” recalls Anna.
She describes her eightyear stint on the show as a wonderful time of her life. “It was such a privilege being able to go into people’s homes and help solve their problems.”
There were lots of complaints about ACC back then and Anna helped people campaign for payouts. “I even managed to get a law change through one of the cases that involved a firefighter.”
She was pregnant with daughter Lily Powell – now a 17-year-old actress who has appeared on TV dramas Step Dave and Westside – while in front of the Fair Go cameras and when the baby was born, she was showered with cards and gifts from viewers. “We still have a tree growing in our garden that was given to us by one.”
Now 50, Anna works as a newsreader for Radio New Zealand and devotes some of her free time to helping out the charity Heart Kids.
“My mum and dad died within a month of each other. After that, I felt like I wanted to help people,” she explains. “There are 12 babies born every week in New Zealand with a congenital heart defect and Heart Kids does some amazing work.”