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A giant fish through the roof!
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The
Headington shark.
The Shark became the
most famous resident of Headington when it landed in the
roof of 2 New High Street on 9 August 1986.
This ordinary home (built as a semi-detached house in
about 1860 but now attached by a link to a second house
to the north) suddenly became the centre of world attention,
and the headless shark still excites interest today.
Bill Heine commissioned the shark and still owns the house.
An American who studied law at Balliol College, he was
running two Oxford cinemas at the time, but since 1988
he has been better known as a Radio Oxford presenter.
When pressed by journalists to provide a rationale for
the shark, he suggested the following:
" The shark was to express someone feeling totally
impotent and ripping a hole in their roof out of a sense
of impotence and anger and desperation.... It is saying
something about CND, nuclear power, Chernobyl and Nagasaki.
"
The headless sculpture, with the label "Untitled
1986" fixed to the gate to the house, was erected
on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic
bomb on Nagasaki. Created by the sculptor John Buckley,
it is made of fibreglass, weighs four hundredweight, and
is 25 feet long...
http://www.headington.org.uk/shark/
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