John Schenker

Interviewed by Eve Klein on 13 December 2000
Subject: Balmoral, Swimming

Eve Klein. What was the swimming instruction like?

John Schenker. That was outside school, it had nothing to do with school.

Eve Klein. You didn’t go swimming with the school at all?

John Schenker. Yes. But I was taught swimming at Balmoral baths hanging from a belt around my waist and suspended from a crane. I was hanging in the water and I practiced my swimming movements down in the water, but I couldn’t sink. They made sure of that, and I thought it was damn good. It was excellent.

Eve Klein. You went often to Balmoral Beach?

John Schenker. Not often. I went mainly to Bondi Beach where my friends were, but occasionally I went to Balmoral. I had a morbid fear of netted beaches, or pools, because Council knows they’re shark proof, I know they’re shark proof, but does the shark know. I was dead scared. I was there the year when a little boy was taken by a shark at Balmoral on the un-netted side of the beach. On the right-hand side of the little projecting island that goes out, and that only increased my fears.