Making the banners

The banners were printed by Kites Up. Roy and Hayley have printed for Take That and Coldplay, but their most rock ‘n’ roll client was me. They have a blackbird in their print office and have fish and chips delivered ‘on-line’ via a zip wire.

20170727_103812 resized
IMG-1037 resized
20170727_103812 resized
IMG-1037 resized
previous arrow
next arrow

It was important that the attachments didn’t sag or bunch up when tethered at different angles.

banner base with hands resized
banner base wide-set resized
banner base twisted resized
banner base angled resized
banner base with hands resized
banner base wide-set resized
banner base twisted resized
banner base angled resized
previous arrow
next arrow

Even so, each attachment took two-to-three hours to make start-to-finish.

Here is my father, Professor Iann Barron CBE; he invented parallel processing, had dinner with the Queen and has been arrested for being a spy. But his best job has been drilling over two thousand holes into the dowels.

Photo of my father, Professor Iann Barron CBE, drilling holes into the dowels in his workshop.

We had to find sturdy rings and paint them.

Photo of painting the attachment rings red.

The bungees had to be threaded and knotted. I roped in two of my best friends: Dott, who has been my friend for fifteen years since primary school and Anna, who was at Bristol Grammar with me and has the kindness and intelligence of Hermione Granger.

Dott making banner bases
Anna threading in the garden
 
Dott making banner bases
Anna threading in the garden
previous arrow
next arrow

The pockets were made by Richard Cope. They were made of ripstop which covered the thread ends. Richard is a friend I don't know yet. He was supported by Alyce Osbourne who also made the attachments and who knows a lot about knots.

Photo of Richard Cope making one of the attachment pockets.

The pockets were machined onto the threads.

Close-up photo showing the threads knotted to a red ring.

And finally, we had to make the toggles by hand and fix the attachments to the banner.

Photo of threading a red wooden toggle.