A twenty-two-year-old London history graduate flies her kite on Hampstead Heath and compares it with Prince William’s three cars for three feelings
Saturday, 17 October 2026. Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath. Wind from the south-west, a red diamond kite, a flask of tea and last night’s glitter still in my hair, 9.20am.
A Hangover, A Hill And A Very Good Wind
I was out at the Electric Ballroom in Camden until two last night, dancing to a DJ whose entire set seemed to be songs my mum played in the car in 2004, which, at twenty-two, is now officially vintage. This morning I did what I always do the morning after, which is walk up Parliament Hill with a kite and let the wind blow the night out of me.
Parliament Hill is the best kite hill in London, and has been for a very long time. On a Saturday morning in October it is full of dads untangling string with the expressions of bomb disposal experts, children screaming in delight, and one elderly man in a waxed jacket who flies a huge box kite every weekend and has never spoken to anybody. I call him the Admiral. I believe he has been flying that kite since roughly the Suez Crisis.
The Report That Ruined My Concentration
My kite was up and steady, so I checked my phone and found the report on Prince William’s three personalised number plates. NOTYET on an Aston Martin for waiting to be King, NOTHARRY on a Range Rover for avoiding his brother, DISTASTEFUL on a Bentley for disapproving of nearly everything. Three vehicles, three moods.
I laughed so hard I let go of one handle and my kite performed a death spiral into a family having a picnic. I apologised to the family. The dad said it was fine and handed the kite back with the delicate care of a man returning a stranger’s toddler. The mum said, it is the number plates, isn’t it. Everyone on Parliament Hill had read it.
A Kite Is The Opposite Of A Bentley
Here is my theory, formed while untangling string. A kite is the most honest vehicle in the world. It has only one mood, and that mood is whatever the wind is doing. You cannot make a kite express disapproval. You cannot make it wait. You cannot make it avoid your brother. If the wind changes, the kite tells everyone instantly, by diving into a picnic.
The Prince needs three cars to tell motorists on the M4 how he feels. The Admiral, with his box kite, has told Parliament Hill exactly how he feels every Saturday for sixty years without a single word, simply by the way he stands, chin up, string taut, eyes fixed on a point two hundred feet above London. He feels the wind. That is all. It is the most dignified thing I have ever seen a British man do in public.
Royal Transport, A Brief History
I studied history at King’s, which means I am contractually obliged to point out that British royals have always used transport to say things. Elizabeth the First used progresses, slow journeys through the countryside with an enormous household, partly to be seen and partly to make her richer subjects pay for her stay. Charles the Second used the royal barge on the Thames like a floating press release. Queen Victoria had a private railway carriage fitted out like a sitting room so that she could disapprove of the countryside in comfort. DISTASTEFUL on a Bentley is simply the twenty-first century version of a Victorian carriage with lace curtains.
The report’s best historical detail is the late Queen’s private motoring joke, MYT 1, which a former royal butler believes was a nod to the Most Mighty in her title. That is my favourite kind of history: a tiny joke that a very powerful woman kept for herself. It is the royal equivalent of writing your initials on the bottom of a drawer.
The Night Before
I should explain the glitter. Last night my friend Priya, who is a junior doctor and therefore needs to dance at least once a month or she will become a danger to the public, dragged our whole group to Camden. We danced until our feet hurt, ate chips on the bridge over the canal and argued, as we always do at one in the morning, about the monarchy. Priya says it should be abolished. Our friend Tom, who works for a bank, says it brings in tourists. I said it brings in material. Everybody agreed that was the correct answer for a history graduate with a part-time job and a comedy diary.
Three Kites For Three Moods
Inspired, I have decided to buy two more kites, so that I, too, can have a vehicle for every mood. The red diamond is for good days. A black one will be for hangovers. And a small pale green one, called NOTYET, will be for waiting for my landlord to fix the boiler, which has been broken since September and which he insists is in hand. The pale green kite will be flown slowly. It will probably never go very high. Like the boiler.
The wind has dropped. The Admiral has reeled in his box kite with the slow precision of a man docking a battleship. He nodded at me as he passed. Not a word. Just a nod. On Parliament Hill, that counts as a knighthood. I am going home to wash the glitter out and have a nap. No number plate required.