A fishy blog

I live in Buckinghamshire about halfway between London and Oxford and (until Covid) was a regular visitor to both cities. One favourite landmark in Oxford that always makes me smile is the Headington Shark.

It was the idea of the owner, journalist Bill Heine. One April evening in 1986, he was drinking with his friend, the sculptor John Buckley, and asked a simple question: could Buckley think of a way to liven up his new home?' What Buckley came up with was a 25ft (8m) long shark which would sit on his roof, perpetually appearing as though it had just crashed into the house as if dropped from the sky. 

The fibreglass fish immediately caught the imagination of the public ... and the ire of Oxford City Council who began a protracted six year campaign to get it removed. Thankfully, public opinion ruled in favour of eccentricity over bureaucracy. 

The piece was designed to be an anti-war protest. 'You could see the Americans were taking off from Heyford outside of Oxford to bomb Gaddafi in Libya,' explains Buckley. 'I wanted to make a powerful statement about the barbarity of war and the feeling of vulnerability. Like looking up at the sky and expecting something deadly to come through your roof.'

I was lucky enough to meet Bill Heine at a talk in Oxford in 2011 and I bought a signed copy of his book The Hunting of the Shark, which tells the story of the sculpture (and the fight to keep it), which was then celebrating its silver jubilee. Heine died in 2019. 

Things like this always remind me of some of the best advice one of my old art teachers - Arthur Andrews - ever gave me: 'Always look up,' he said. 'That's where the history of a building lies.' And he was right. Above the anodyne shop fronts and double glazed plastic windows is where you'll find all of the most interesting features like gargoyles and grotesques, curious chimneys and follies. 

Watch the skies, people.