Gretchen Dechert

Interviewed by Zoe Dobson on 15 August 2005
Subject: Balmoral, Cave Dwellers

Gretchen Dechert. Yes I went to Balmoral a lot, that’s where I learnt to swim. When I was a little girl my father threw me in off the end of the wharf and dived in after me of course, but I learnt to swim there. And that part down there where The Watermark is, that oval had grown out of the tip. It was a smelly place, you never went there, and just opposite The Watermark there’s a sort of cave and my mother always told me I must hurry past, because a man lived there. I don’t think I ever saw him he must have been hiding in the bushes there.