Kite-making king proud of his craft

Tucked just off Martindales Road, adjacent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, kite-maker Peter Wiltshire sits beneath a sea of colour.

His small wooden bench is flanked by row upon row of bold handcrafted, meticulously measured kites.

Some dangle from the ceiling like ornaments while others neatly line the aqua-painted walls of the space he operates from, just waiting to be tailed and hoisted in the Bajan skies.

Wiltshire, who introduced himself to Barbados TODAY as the Kite King of BIM, has turned a childhood pastime into both a livelihood and a labour of cultural love, one he happily shares with his 17-year-old son.

Together, they craft and sell kites of every kind — from bare skeletons to finished showpieces — hoping to pass on not just a product, but a piece of Barbadian identity.

“I’ve been doing this from [the time] I was a boy… about 12 years old,” he told Barbados TODAY.

“My brother gave me my first kite and I loved it. If I love something, I try to spend time to understand how it works and is done.”

That early curiosity laid the foundation for a lifelong skill.

Wiltshire, now 58-years-old, said he began by building the small coconut bone kites of old and eventually graduated to sturdier frames using boards.

His open-air stall, with its kaleidoscope display, is a visual testament to decades of practice and precision.

The craftsman noted that while many might see only paper and string, kite-making is not as simple as it seems.

“Kites got a lot of hard work and a lot of technical, intricate parts in it,” he said.

“You have to get the centre right. If you got an odd measurement  like say 17 and a half centimetres, you’ve got to find the centre, which is about 8 and three-quarters. Then to get all the spaces even, you’ve got to use a measuring tape. It’s really more than paper and string. There needs to be a lot of mathematics and precision.”

Speaking on what he cherishes most about the craft, he said, “When my customers come back to let me know how nice the kite flew — that is my satisfaction.”

Wiltshire told Barbados TODAY that kite-flying at Easter is more than seasonal fun; it’s a tradition handed down through generations.

He noted, however, that like many cultural crafts, it’s facing erosion in the age of convenience.

“To me, right now, the art form of kite-making has become like [fast food],” he said.

“People nowadays not doing it the traditional way. Growing up in my time, we used to sit down and take nothing and make something… using our creativity,” he said.

“Now they just buying a piece of plastic, sticking it on and calling it a kite. I call that fast food kite-making.”

Though he admitted to adapting to modern demands, Wiltshire stressed that he tries to keep the authentic craft alive, stating “I’m not going to be left out, so I join the crew, but I try my best to stay and keep the art form alive.”

And while some residents have raised concerns about the noise of traditional “bulls”, that is the large, whistling paper kites that once ruled the skies, Wiltshire believes there’s room for compromise.

“Right now, the youngsters still enjoy flying kites but people keep talking about the noise. I think they should be able to fly it some time during the day, then haul it down in the evening so everybody can be comfortable.”

Efforts to preserve the tradition are growing, with the 4-H Foundation recently hosting a workshop to teach schoolchildren the basics of traditional kite-making — an initiative Wiltshire applauds.

shannamoore@barbadostoday.bb