Oliver Kite - A Tribute to Oliver Kite (Better Quality!)

[@juliawitts7270]

I was 13 when Ollie Kite died. I can still remember the shock and sense of loss. His programmes inspired my love of wildlife. RIP Ollie, a very special man.

[@NickRatnieks]

It is great to see Ollie in colour- it was a black and white world of TV- back then. I can remember how shocked we were when he died- we discussed it in the school yard and I assume it had been covered on Southern TV which was why we were so well informed. I can remember reading an article by him- probably in a loco spotter's annual about the demise of the Stockbridge railway and how there had been hopes it might survive. It's all a long time ago but good that we can remember him.

[@chrisbishop1534]

My Father,Len Bishop.knew him and Major Kite came and made one of hs films"A day on th Itchen" on our river.A very nice man,a real gentle man,much missed!

[@the-nomad]

A gem of a find!

[@JS-zy6pw]

That last fish was huge

[@sidpheasant7585]

Although I was born in the 60s, I was from the north, so had zero knowledge of "Kite's Country" or any of this background. Since Ollie witnessed the Bomb being detonated in Oz, one wonders if the illness while in the Army and then the early death... Anyway, some years later under my real name I won one of the Oliver Kite Memorial Prizes, without knowing the above back-story at all. And digging for info was not so easy back in the early '80s (unike today when a matter of moments). Came across this now having been sent something about Jack Hargreaves via KZbin. I was a naturalist from age 5, I guess, and our pioneering family holidays to Spain late 60s and France made me just like the young Gerald Durrell, disappearing into the countryside with jars and a butterfly net. Now, my parents would be arrested for neglect! I was one of the last of the "Victorian naturalists" I guess. I won the Prize in memory of Ollie in the context of studying biology at Uni. Ollie would have got me a bit, I hope, and I'm grateful to him. But just a couple of years ago, I realised that my parents had had me baptised on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (of course they did not realise it, and neither did I until just recently, after I had already been Born Again in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit). My interest was seeded in me at baptism, and I'm immeasurably grateful to the Holy Spirit for that and for so much else. It was He who kept me safe as I wandered through lanes and woods and fields alone at still-tender ages. The programme above notes how animals would sort-of appear for Ollie, and this happens to me too, now. They are signs through nature from the Holy Spirit (who also does Scripture, culture and Rapture - which is neat enough). Above we see culture and nature.

[@jamesbarr1620]

Would have been great to see him and the great frank sawyer fishing the Avon together