Paul Metzler

Interviewed by Donna Braye on 18 February 2000
Subject: Sirius Cove

Paul Metzler. Where we lived, so you can get a picture of the street outside, was in Prince Albert Street on the corner of Lennox Street. As far as I was concerned, I went up the flat street to the Zoo nearly every day or I went down the steep street to Sirius Cove, nearly every day, I thought.

Donna Braye. Was Lennox Street a dead end? It was a cul-de-sac?

Paul Metzler. It was the steepest street I’d ever imagined. It ends and then you went down a bank. I suppose there were steps cut in it; there are steps there today, but it was a steep thing, and then you were at Sirius Cove.

Donna Braye. And that’s where you went swimming?

Paul Metzler. There was a shark net, in the days of fear of sharks in Sydney Harbour. There was a shark net, but it was so far out that at low tide the whole thing was sand, as far as the shark net, so it went right out to the Point there. There was no stone wall, there was a stream that came in, and I thought the stream had made Sydney Harbour.