Kite’s Country comes to Rye
Major Oliver Kite, better known to many thousands of television viewers as “Ollie Kite”, recently came to Rye to make a film for one of his programmes.
The film came about as a result of a fishing trip Ollie made with Robert Hollands in the “Little Robert”. The trip, to Dungeness, was a rough outing, force six winds made it uncomfortable, to say the least, but Major Kite insisted that he had enjoyed it none the less, despite the fact that there were very few fish caught. It was on this trip that Ollie saw the possibilities of a film for his “Kite’s Country” programme which goes out oh Southern Television every Monday evening.
The film, which was planned to be screened on 22nd August, is of the wild life Ollie saw on a trip up the Rother, between Rye and the Harbour. He was specially interested in the sets of Shellduck, the comical antics of the young chicks consumed many feet of film, and cameraman Ted Channel was kept very busy for the whole time.
Ollie, an instantly recognisable character, was greeted and waved at from all sides on his brief visit to Rye and for many days after, the whisper “Did you know that Ollie Kite was in Rye ?“ went round.
First Printed in “Rye’s Own” September 1966