A Kestrel for a Knave

I caught part of it and need to see it all; what I saw was wonderful. I was hoping they wouldn't show the sad bit but, of course, they did so I burst into tears. Currently reading H is for Hawk which is also wonderful, Dinahmo; how lovely...[so many good programmes to watch at the moment; I can't catch up with catchup…]

Some lovely memories.

Lovely, lovely story. The film made me cry though. I grew up in Norfolk so it was just a story to me. But then I moved up North as a mature adult and worked among a community very like that in the story. Even more poignant.

Back in the 80's my husband had a workshop in Brixton where a pair of kestrels nested in a hole in his wall- about 2 floors up. He kept an eye on them and, if they fell out of their nest he'd put them back. He even followed one that flew across Brixton High Road, temporarily knocking itself out against shop windows. One day they had all disappeared and luckily survived. He saw them on a different roof top. After that he blocked off the exterior of the hole so that there would not be any more nests.

Some young men pestered him to let them take the chicks, which he refused. Their reason was that they had seen Kes and wanted a kestrel for themselves.

We did this book in our English classes at school and were lucky enough to have Barry Hines come to the school. I had my photograph in the local paper with him (and a lot of my classmates).

I loved the book and the film. I've not seen the film for ages - I must try and find it again.

I think I've still got my autographed copy of the book somewhere.

Thanks, Ill find it on catch up.

A Kestrel for a Knave is a great book and the film was so moving. It's part of working class culture that you don't see so often these days. I think that's a shame, children learn so much from animals and hawks are special

We watched this. It was great.

Thanks for that! I'll look out for it.

Kes had a big impact on me as a child. Brilliant film