Irene Kertez

Interviewed by Eve Klein on 8 November 2000
Subject: Parriwi Road, Housing

Irene Kertez. They came to me, but I said in Botany I can’t teach, they had children and in-laws etc, etc, and we had one room. He said: ‘That’s not a problem, I find for you accommodation’. He got at Parriwi Road – it was a beautiful big house, it was a house and a big garage and a big garden. The house was divided for four flats. On the top, we got a flat and another family got one, and down it was an office for a news paper man, and he get the first Mosman Daily type of something. I’m talking now from 1951. And the other flat was a guy who had two monkeys, no children. Two chimpanzees – they were eating with them, they went to the toilet etc, etc. It was just fun to see them. They handled the monkeys like children. And then they were friends of the real estate man.