A Head For Heights
Pat Coulter is walking on air at Portsmouth’s International Kite Festival.
LET’S go fly a kite, up to the highest height.” The ebullient, uplifting song from “Mary Poppins” evokes happy childhood memories for many, I’m sure.
The cheerful tune immediately transports me back to endless summer days cavorting across golden sands, trailing my little yellow and blue diamond kite with our family dog jumping up frantically trying to catch its dancing tail.
I remember it took a lot of puff and effort on my part to coax it into the air, but, oh, what a thrill when I did!
All these years later here’s my chance to relive those high-flying, fun-loving days – at the Portsmouth International Kite Festival on Southsea Common.
The free festival, one of the largest of its kind in the UK, has been an annual fixture for over 25 years, attracting kite enthusiasts from across Europe, and even our Antipodean friends in New Zealand.
“We all associate kite flying with child’s play,”
Jos Veenstra from the Netherlands says, “but there are more adults flying kites nowadays than youngsters.
“Perhaps we’ve never really grown up.” He smiles.
Of course, one vital necessity for kite flying is a decent breeze.
Be careful what you wish for, as today it’s blowing so hard the local hovercraft which flies across the Solent has temporarily been cancelled!
It reminds me of Benjamin Franklin’s famous experiment.
The renowned founding father of America intrepidly flew a kite in a tremendous storm to prove that lightning was a form of electricity.
Today it seems none of the flyers intend to re-enact his dangerous feat by actually holding on to any kite strings.
However, the determined festival kite flyers won’t be grounded.
Despite the weather conditions, I’m still greeted with a colourful scene of dozens of bobbing kites painting the ever-darkening sky with a surprising scene: an eclectic mix from a circus-style menagerie of dancing animals to a pair of footballer’s legs kicking a giant football!
How do the kites fly in these conditions?
The huge, metres-tall inflatable kites aren’t being hand-flown as such; instead they are ingeniously tethered to sandbags, yet still flying high and proud.
It’s better this way, as we don’t want kite flyers soaring Mary-Poppins-like into the air now, do we?
In past times, though, long before the invention of airplanes, kites were used to propel intrepid souls into the air, often for reconnaissance purposes.
Even the Wright Brothers experimented with kites before they made their inaugural airplane flight.
People have been making and flying kites for some 3,000 years.
No-one knows for sure who invented the kite. Some historians believe it was the Chinese as some of the earliest kites were beautifully made from bamboo and sumptuous silk artfully painted.
In Japan it’s traditional for families to fly kites in the shape of fish on Children’s Day, which is May 5.
The revered koi fish is emblematic of the qualities that parents
desire for their children, such as courage, strength and determination.
The children here at the Portsmouth Kite Festival, it seems, are just as fanatical about fantastical kites.
Enthralled kids are pointing skywards, gleefully shouting out their personal favourites from a zany purple octopus to a spaceman.
It’s heartwarming to see, in this age of sophisticated gadgets and those rather sinister “spy in the sky” drones, that children are still mesmerised by the simple pleasure of watching and admiring dancing kites.
“It’s a great way of getting the kids out of doors to run off some energy.”
A mum of two boisterous boys beams.
“Three generations of our family are here, including my mum, who used to take me kite flying in the local park.
“It’s lovely to encourage my kids with such a rewarding hobby which costs a lot less than any computer game.
“You can’t get a lungful of fresh air with virtual reality, can you!”
As for my favourite, it’s the not so little three little pigs, pink as you like and curly-tailed.
Poppy sniffs them a tad suspiciously as they take to flight.
Yes, in the kite world, pigs really can fly!
With the rain beginning to lash down on windblown Southsea Common, it’s time for us to trot off home with fond memories of a most uplifting day.