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I was sad to learn of the death of
Bill Heine who was a big character in Oxford when I lived there in the late 1980s. Not only did he run the independent cinemas where I first saw Withnail and I, Baron Munchhausen and many other films (I remember going to see a double bill of James Dean films in my first week at college, with a group of people who were trying out being friends, none of whom I’d have very much to do with once the first month was out), he also famously decorated the roof of his house with a huge shark, which appeared to have somehow fallen head first from the sky and smashed through the tiles.
But Bill also had a local radio show on BBC Oxford that in the third year at university me and my housemates became obsessed with for some reason. I don’t know how long this obsession lasted or why it happened at all and I am sure we were viewing everything back then through thickly smeared on irony. But Bill had a daily phone in quiz that we became obsessed with winning. I can’t remember the details or even the format, though I suspect it was pretty easy (though before the days of premium numbers, so I may be wrong). We tried to ring up a few times, but the lines were engaged due to the heavy demand of pensioners and ironic students trying to win the crappy prizes on offer. So we came up with the plan of dialling all but the last digit of the phone number and then, as soon as the question was asked, pressing the final digit and hopefully getting straight through.
And it worked! I got through to the switch board and the lady who answered expressed surprise at the speed we’d got through - the question would only that second have escaped Heine’s moustachioed mouth. I had the right answer and got put through and spoke to Bill - no doubt using that sarcastic voice that students all use as I ironically praised him and said what a fan I was (we were listening to him daily, so the real irony was that we were fans) and we WON! Our prize was a Spitting Image audio tape with funny ansaphone messages on it. I believe you were meant to get them on to your ansaphone tape simply by playing the Spitting Image cassette near to your ansaphone when you pressed the button to record your message. And then you could have Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher answering your phone for you, albeit with a bit of hiss and a clunking play button.
We didn’t have an ansaphone.
But we’d won and I had spoken to Bill. It was probably the greatest academic achievement of my University years.
But thanks for all the anarchy Bill and the fun I had at your cinemas and the small amount of pleasure I had at your expense. You were a Great British eccentric, even though you were American and unlike most great eccentrics also did a lot of stuff that was of actual use. Oxford is a darker place without you. Sorry, I lost the tape you gave me.
