One of the joys of summer holidays is being able to take time out and just wander without a specific goal or destination in mind. Walking along a sea shore, sand between the toes, wind in the hair, the cry of the seabirds and the susurration of sea waves gently curling on the beach. Lines from AA Milne’s poem Spring Morning come to mind:
Where am I going? I don’t quite know… If you were a bird, and lived on high, You’d lean on the wind when the wind came by, You’d say to the wind when it took you away: “That’s where I wanted to go today!”
A playful wind and an expanse of open beach create the perfect environment for the fun of flying a kite – something that has been enjoyed for hundreds of years. It’s unclear who invented the first kite but it is believed that the earliest kites, made of leaves and reeds, were used to aid fishing. An early written account of kite flying comes from China in 200BC when a general of the Han dynasty used a kite to fly over the walls of a city he was attacking to measure just how far his army would have to tunnel under the city walls to achieve domination.
Since then, kites have evolved and been used for many different purposes. As playthings for children they provided hours of amusement but gradually it was realised by scientists that they could be used for studying the atmosphere and understanding more about the weather.
Kite flying also helped with the development of early aircraft and they were used militarily in observation and aircraft recognition exercises. Modern hang-gliders and sports parachutes have their origins in early kites and today kite-surfing has become an extreme sport in which kite riders combine kite flying and surfing to perform breath-taking acrobatics.
But you can keep it simple too – there’s still so much fun to be had with your feet on the ground and a simple colourful kite. As the children in the film ‘Mary Poppins’ found:
‘With tuppence for paper and strings You can have your own set of wings With your feet on the ground You're a bird in a flight With your fist holding tight To the string of your kite.’
