As A Kid Along With Mum And Dad,

we spent many holidays at a seaside resort called Dymchurch,

at first the seaside town did not seem to have much to offer, but it did have two things in its favor, one was wind, plenty of it as the whole area was as flat as a pancake, so naturally we flew kites, but in those days there were not many to chose from, which is why I have pictured a few that are available now from the 28th Weifang International Kite Festival earlier this year in China,

so many lovely designs, but for a fuller view of what is a available have a look at the Weifang New Sky Kites Factory web site, the factory was established during the Sixth Weifang International Kites Festival in 1988, the amazing thing is that the factory is staffed with 80 workers and the production value amounted to 3 million US dollars per year, I would never have thought that the pastime was so popular,


this being the Year of the Dragon, according to the Chinese zodiac, the mythical beast was a hands-down favorite at the festival, in which 110 teams from 67 countries participated, even more amazing was that kites brought there ranged in size from 20 to 600 meters! but back to those lazy holiday days of the mid 1950s, we had a couple of shop bought ones, but the pride of place was one that Dad bought from a army surplus shop, there were lots of them about then selling all manner of things surplus from the forces, he arrived home before the holiday with one of these,

it was a kite used on submarines to hoist an aerial for sending radio messages, also some kits with radios were used by downed airman in their inflatable craft to give their position to rescuers, the thing was it flew so well, even in the slightest breeze in moments would have it way above the other kites on the beach, happy days indeed, I mention Dymchurch had two things going for it, the second we visited in our trip to the UK in September 2010, a mini railway, the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway to give it its proper title, a must visit for anyone with a passing interest in steam trains.