We go back a long way. And,as beautiful a creature as they are,our grisly fascination with their power and potential menace shines through the ages. Mercifully,the whose leg was mauled by a bull shark off Elizabeth Bay on Monday evening,will thankfully survive. Alas,very occasionally over the centuries,the outcome has been more horrific.
Actor Marcia Hathaway was attacked and killed by a shark while she was standing in murky water in Sugarloaf Bay.Supplied
The last in Sydney Harbour have all been in Middle Harbour,with one of the last notable ones being at Balmoral on January 17,1955,when a 14-year-old lad from Burran Avenue,John Willis,was wading through the waters just to the left of Balmoral Beach’s shark net,watched by his doting parents when he suddenly threw his hands in the air and shouted:“Shark! Shark! Help!”
Alas,it was too late,and the lad died.
The front page of The Sydney Morning Herald on January 29,1963 after Hathaway died.Fairfax Archives
The headlines went for days,and went even longer when,in 1963,,while she was standing in murky water not even a metre deep,just a little over five metres from the shore of Sugarloaf Bay.
The horror. Oh,the horror!
Sydney hasnever taken the laissez-faire attitude of the Byron Bay surfer of a few years ago,who after having survived being mauled by a shark,nonchalantly said,“Well,you know,mate,if the water is salty,there is gunna be sharks in it.”
In Sydney,we take no such attitude,though it was at least noted that when a shark got into the Balmoral Beach pool in 2017 and started doing laps,it was a sign that – and it was the talk of the town for days.
There is,however,one story that has fascinated through the decades,and it is one of the great Sydney yarns. See,back in 1935,this,found that while fishing off the Heads,he had jagged a huge tiger shark.
Kill it?
No,he has a much better,and more lucrative idea.
Instead,he tows it to his brother Charlie Hobson’s famous Coogee Aquarium,so they can charge the punters a shilling or so to see it!
And that is why,on Anzac Day of that year,that aquarium is chock-a-block with Diggers and their families.
The tiger shark,not happy about its confinement,charges around the aquarium looking as if it wants the children for hors d’oeuvres and their parents for the main course –so wonderfully frightening! – until suddenly,before their very eyes the shark ...
The shark ...
The shark disgorges a ... a ... a human arm!
When it is gingerly retrieved with a net on a long stick,a very particular arm it proves to be,with a crude tattoo of two boxers on its bicep,and a piece of rope around its wrist. By pure happenstance aHeraldjournalist by the name of Narcisse Young is Johnny-on-the-spot,and is able to file the story with great detail and it is published in the next day’s paper.
James Smith’s arm was thrown up by a shark in the Coogee Aquarium in 1935.Supplied
Members of the public come forward. They’d know that tatt,anywhere! It belongs – surely,belonged – to small-time Sydney crim James Smith.
The police quickly launch a murder investigation,and another petty crim by the name of Patrick Brady,who shared digs with Smith in Cronulla is asked to come down to the station for a wee chat. Alerted by all the publicity,a local taxi driver comes forth,and alleges that he had taken Brady to the lower north shore house of a famous boatbuilder by the name of Reginald Holmes,a local pillar of his church and community.
The plot thickens,as Sydney reads every latest instalment of the saga,agog.
Strangely,Holmes refuses to give any explanation for his association with Brady,whereupon he isarrested – SENSATION – on suspicion of murdering Smith.
Hold the front page! Brady breaks down,“sings like a canary” and,though he steadfastly maintains that he had not murdered Smith,he does allow that he and Holmes had in fact,well,not to put too fine a point on it,actually been engaged in a criminal scheme,involving forgery.
At this point Holmes does what the police are pleased to refer to as “a runner” and disappears,only to turn up,as drunk astwo skunks,at dawn on the morning of Monday,May 20,in a boat not far from Bennelong Point.
In one hand,he has a bottle of brandy. In the other,a .32 pistol. As the water police approach,he puts the gun to his forehead,pulls the trigger and ... survives.
Nothing but a flesh wound.
He’ll have the lot of them!
For the next half hour,the police chase him all over Sydney Harbour,as the still-drunken Holmes,with blood streaming down his face,leads them on a merry chase. After finally being taken into custody,Holmes is again taken down to the station,and this time the canary turns vengeful vulture – accusing Patrick Brady of killing his fellow crim and roommate Smith,and sinking his body in a tin trunk off Port Hacking Heads!
Reginald Holmes,left,found murdered and small-time crook and police informer James Smith,whose arm was found in the shark.Fairfax Archive
Sydney has never seen anything like it,never read anything like it,and the appetite to read more is voracious.
The once venerable Reginald Holmes,with his reputation now far more shot to pieces than his head,promises to give full details when the inquest into the death of Smith is held,starting on the morning of June 12 ... and,by gee,he very nearly makes it,too.
Alas,alas,just a few hours before he is due to testify he is shot dead down at The Rocks,in another sensation.
What can the police now do with Patrick Brady?
Not much.
The still preserved arm doesn’t count as a body to prove murder,or even,necessarily –a la the later tragic saga of – that he was dead in the first place. But their key witness is dead.
Patrick Brady is free to go,and so ends.
X/Twitter:
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interestingstories,analysis and insights..