Martin Lester

How did it all begin?

"I first got into flying kites when I was eight. My father's brother ran a petrol station, and free with every 4 gallons of petrol you got a little plastic Eddy kite. Then someone gave me a kite which was a pink hexagon. I think I was too young to tie knots, and it flew away and landed on top of a dead tree! For the next two or three years it was still there, but I was unable to get it. Nearly put me off kite flying!

I went to Bristol as an art student in the 70's, and studied three-dimensional design. I met Dave Turner who went on to open the first UK kite shop in Bristol in 1976, called Windcraft. Later that year a shop in London opened called Kites, run by Eric Gibson. David and Eric got on and joined the businesses as Kite Store Ltd with two shops, so double the buying-power. On Jan 1st 1977 I started working full time in the Bristol shop.

I had finished my studies by then and in the meantime had met Peter Powell. We were doing displays and demonstrations with 6, 7, 8 stacked Peter Powells, 200 foot of line, twisted nylon, with 200 foot tails!

Whilst working in the kite shop I taught myself to sew. When the shop was quiet, that was my favourite time, because then I could make kites. Sometimes someone would come into the shop and say "I'd like one of those kites, but a red one" and the reply would be "We have a delivery tomorrow, come back tomorrow". We'd then go round the corner, unroll the red fabric and make that kite!"

Would you describe yourself as a kitemaker or kite designer?

"Just 'Designer'. It covers a lot of things, it's what I originally trained as. The nice thing about the course I did in Bristol, was that although you came out with a furniture qualification, you actually covered a lot of things like furniture, interior design, product design, a bit of graphic design, etc. The fact that I made kites as well was just part of it."

Two signature kites of yours are the Shark and the Legs. How did they come about?

"I set up my own business as a designer / maker in 1982 (and have been struggling ever since!) Through my work in the kite shop I got known for building the odd kite, I would like to think I got reasonably good at it! I did a lot of custom work, because of the shop in London, some of the work that came in through them could get passed on to me, and that's how it all started.

I went to a few kite festivals, such as Scheveningen, and started seeing kites from around the world. I was inspired by Chinese kites and three-dimensional stuff, but you did need big boxes to carry these things. I had been making some windsocks, but they spun and I remember thinking "How do I stop these from spinning?". A few years later, everyone was doing spinning windsocks!

I was trying to think of a way of getting the windsock in the air without using a kite to fly it off, and the easiest thing I could think of was to have a windsock with wings. It wasn't a commission, it was just an idea, and I ended up doing the Shark. It became my logo!

The famous Martin Lester's Legs kite began as a joke by the Kite Store. In 1988 a spoof advert appeared on the back of the 'Kite Flier' magazine: Martin Lester's New Kite - his legs, as seen all over the world.

Mark Cottrell had drawn this very simple flying pair of legs, which looked more like a flat kite with two streamers coming off the bottom, but with a pair of shorts and identifiable. I had done a couple of festivals in Singapore and Italy, and somebody had given me some painted silk shorts, really brightly coloured. If you're going to run around in a hot country, then you want to wear a pair of shorts. So these became a bit of a signature in a way. Because it was the mid eighties, kite festivals were really beginning to pick up all around the world. I was spending a lot of time travelling, and so the Kite Store would ring up and would be told "Martin's not in, he's off at a kite festival somewhere". So that's where the idea for the advert came up.

The shop did get a lot of people ringing up saying "I want Martin's kite", and they had to admit that yes, it was actually a joke!. But then that was quite nice, because it then started a tradition of Kite Store adverts on the back page of the newsletter that were always a spoof. It was a good, fun thing to do.

The Kite Flier
Issue 34, January 1988
(Click pic for larger image)

Martin's Legs

I had seen the spoof advert and thought, "what a brilliant idea for a kite!". I had made inflatable kites before- the Shark, Space Shuttle and the birds. They were soft kites but they all had a frame to hold them in shape. I thought "what a great idea for a totally soft kite", because you've got a parafoil with two tubes coming off the back! I didn't know anything about the Suttom Flowform at the time, which is a similar idea in the basic concept.

I wanted to make the Legs kite and fly it at a festival but I didn't want to be seen flying it. I wanted lots of other people to see it flying and go to the Kite Store and ask about it so they'd say "There really is a kite like that!?"

I think it was Blackheath Easter 1988 where I flew it for the first time but 'got caught'. The kite didn't fly particularly well but over that year I developed it and went on to fly it for the Queen's birthday in Denmark, and then the next time in Chicago where it won the 'People's Choice' award. It was the beginning of a long story; a joke that turned into good business!

After coming back from Chicago I said "Right, I'll come back next year and I'll have the full body done". In fact it was about 10 years later before I got the full body done. Still, I made over 5000 sets of legs in that time. I certainly cut them all out and bridled them, not necessarily sewed them all!

I was amazed with the first big ones I flew because it is a big kite - 32ft long and 8ft wide - and I never imagined I would ever sell any of them. I think I have sold about 50 sets of those, and 4 or 5 sets of 65 ft legs, and now a 30ft set of legs are 'a small kite'! Peter Lynn is responsible for that, the escalation of kite sizes! It's amazing how people's perceptions have changed..."

You must have needed help to cope with that many orders?

The original Natalie

"Yes, I was making legs, top halves, and all the other stuff. I couldn't do it all by myself. My sister helped me out for a while, and I took on Natalie whose legs became immortalised. So many people at the time had said "you have to do a female set of legs" so I hopefully managed to do it tastefully without offending people. The obvious one was kind of the direction it took! I didn't know what to call them at the time, 'Sexy Legs' or 'Womens Legs' or something. Natalie said "oh yes, you can call it after me", so now she has to put up with hearing at festivals "Oh, there's Natalie with her legs in the air!"

I couldn't do all the work myself so I started employing people, I took on 4 more people to help manufacturing. It hit the wall and friends doing similar things in the States, in about 1992, found that kitemaking was going overseas. Stunt kites that I was making that retailed for £100 suddenly retailed for about £50 because of all the kites coming out of China, Taiwan, etc. That really affected the whole kite market and the knock-on effect of that is still happening now."

How were you affected by the growth in the power kiting scene?

"Well, I did a lot of repairs!...

I had always enjoyed power kiting. Back in Bristol in the 70's I used to run a skateboard shop and on one occasion scared myself senseless with a couple of 6 foot Flexifoils, and on one occasion with a Super 10 on an airfield runway! At Ashton Court, when I was a student, we used to skateboard all the way down the hill there, and do timed runs, reaching speeds of up to 60mph, at maybe 5, 6 o'clock in the morning when there were no cars around. But if you put the really big wheels on a big board, there were some really good hills to go mountainboarding!

To make a business out of it was not something which I really wanted to do. It started getting very technical very quickly. You have to know what you are doing. Maybe I should have done, with hindsight! Having got into the technical side of stunt kites, I found that you could have a kite that would fly really well but it wouldn't sell because it didn't have the latest little 'gadgets' on it. The technology was there, but people wouldn't buy it because it didn't "look right". You had to have all this stuff on it, and it kind of destroyed the kite's performance. I did make a few power kites for other people though.

I began to look down this line of technical stuff, and I remember talking to Peter Lynn in the early days and I was having a problem with a design and he looked at it and within half a minute he made a suggestion and it solved the problem! I remember thinking "OK, I don't have the technical ability for this!". I much prefer the creative side of it. I'm less interested in the graphic on the kite, and more interested in the shape of the kite, the performance of the kite. I will sometimes pursue a change of design, knowing that it will probably not go anywhere, but just to see how far it will go. Then you are working on something else totally unconnected three years later and you will think "Ah - I know how to do that!". I am constantly going up blind alleys but every now and then, something will leap out. There are ways out sometimes. It may not be this particular project, but something else may come along, you think "Brilliant!" - it just may take a few years to get there.

You see peaks and troughs of interest coming and going, always wondering what the next one will be. Power kiting has just gone on and on. With kite-surfing, it's not yet hit saturation point. It has taken off more than buggying ever did because in this country, because we've got coastline all around us. There are now very few places where you can buggy safely because although you can buggy on a beach, you can't do during the summer."

"The kites are now a way of life, as well as a job. Maintaining that balance is a hard one. But, I do what I do. As long as it pays the bills and I have fun doing it. Doing kites has paid the bills, and I've had so much fun, I've been to places I never dreamed I'd ever go. It was by luck as much as anything, and it is a great honour to be able to do this."

Martin Lester's website can be found at www.martinlester.co.uk. He is President (in exile) of the Avon Kite Fliers and also on the Drachen Foundation's board of Directors.