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Mark Coningsby

Hi

I’ve been flying kites (well them mostly flying me) since I was a wee lad.

I started off with little sheets of plastic on a single line when on holiday. In particular I remember one that looked like a bat, that I wrapped round a lamppost on Bournemouth Beach when I was about 5.  

I moved on to two line (stunt) kites when I was about 10 / 11, which my dad bought for me when we got a caravan in Mersey Island, as I got bored with just standing in one place and watching it fly. Since then I have had quite a few “stunt” kites, two of which I still have in my garage (although in more pieces than when they were purchased). I continued to fly kites, mostly while at Mersey Island, until I was about 17 (coz that’s when the caravan was disposed of). 

I remember about 14 years ago we went to the first Royston Heath Kite Festival and saw a “kite shaped like a parachute” but despite searching we never found one, so I continued flying “stunt” kites with little flapy tails.  

11 years later while walking through Blue Water Shopping Centre, Clare (Mowz) saw a large kite hanging from the ceiling of a shop………10 minutes later I had a new Flexifoil Super 10. I was so impressed which then turned to addicted, over the period of a year I acquired 2 Flexifoil Proteam 8’s. 

After a year I saw a Blade II being flown at Hunstanton Kite Festival with guys in Buggy's and on Boards. On the way home I turned to Clare and said “you do know I’m gonna get one of those Blade thingy's don’t you!!!!!!”  

So 3 years after getting the Super 10 I now have a nice little bag of stuff, plus my finely tuned Blade II 4.9, and once I start getting paid as a Qualified Mental Health Nurse my kite bag will expand nicely……. 

The rest, as they say, is history.