I was watching something last night that had a cutaway shot to two people in a field making a half-arsed effort to fly a kite, and it bought up a strong, but long forgotten memory.
I was about eight, probably, and me and my brother were in a field next to the sailing club we used to go to. The grass was quite long, there was no-one else about, and the wind was rather strong.
We were both excited because we had a kite.
I have no idea if it was my kite, or his, or if I had saved up my pocket money to buy it, or if it was a present, though I suspect it was the latter. We were opening it up from its polythene packaging, and I remember it being black with a space theme. My brother thinks it was probably a He-Man kite, and he’s probably right.
Neither of us really knew how to get it flying, but we sort of lucked into realising that a bit of running into the wind would do it, and within a few minutes, it was flying quite high.
No idea if I was pilotting it at this point, or if he was.
My only real memory is this.
The string snapped.
The kite was blown off across the river, and came to a crashing halt in the rigging of a boat, struck in the mud at low tide.
I have owned one kite in my life.
It lasted about two minutes.
