“I volunteered for the Australian Aerial Patrol, I was on Shark Patrol. We had to spot the sharks for the swimmers. I had the number 1 position, I saw 72 sharks in one day! That day we flew down over Ulladulla and from then on I said ‘I’m never going in the water again!’

When people went swimming, we were there to look out for them. We went to the beaches without lifeguards, we had to look for the sharks and sound the siren. These people know exactly when to get out, they would hear the alarm. You can see a lot from the air, especially in the water. We would sound the alarm when we would see the sharks in the second breaker, but sometimes they were very close, in the first breaker.

I really love flying. I wanted to be a pilot since I was 12 years old but I couldn’t because of the war in Germany. But now I can fly and that makes me happy. On one of my first trips, I got a glimpse of the coastline. It was absolutely marvellous to see how our coastline is, it’s beautiful and that stays in my head all the time. I come from Germany, but when I saw that I said ‘I never want to leave here, I love it.”