Interviewer: Sue Rosen

Length: 11,640 words

Date: May 1992

Chris Niccol had lived at Huntingdon Hall on the western bank of the Nepean since the 1930s. His personal memories date until the 1950s. he also has a particular knowledge of Knapsack Creek, which he remembers as being completely grassed with long grass and the water crystal clear. Chris recalled that about 1960.

"The banks were actually further out into the river than they are now. There used to be a sand pool, which is the sand levee there, no levee ... delta. That comes and goes depending on the floods, [on] which flood and how it reacts; and how the creek flooding occurs too, but the banks are certainly eroded back at least 3O feet to what they were in the [19]60s. Now, I can remember an earlier period when I've been with my father down there … Basically [they were] all sandy shores, all sloping into the water, [from] which you could wade in; and it wasn't long after that, that the first speedboats started to come to the river; and I can remember feeling antagonistic towards them, because they'd run their boats into the banks, and force us out of our own swimming areas, what we considered our own secluded and private swimming areas… and, of course, they'd leave their beer bottles and everything around…We'd sit there, and watch the banks collapsing, after each wave…"