Meet 'the Michael Eavis of balloons' behind Bristol International Balloon Fiesta
Richard Payne speaks to Don Cameron for ITV West Country.
He might be a little slower getting in and out of the baskets these days but Don Cameron's appetite for flying fires as brightly as one of the burners on his special shaped balloons.
Which is why the 83-year-old expects to make "several" flights as the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta returns to the Ashton Court Estate this weekend (Aug 11-14).
"Ballooning is probably the safest form of sporting flying, so why not continue?" the softly-spoken Scot told ITV News West Country. "They estimate there'll be half a million visitors over the four days, so the appeal is still there for lots of other people, too."
When it was suggested he could be the 'Michael Eavis of ballooning', Mr Cameron said: "I suppose there is some kind of resemblance there - without the beard, of course.
"I'm only one of many people doing it now, so if I disappear I'm sure it'll carry on very well without me."
Little more than 20 balloons and a small curious crowd formed the first fiesta in September 1979.
"It's absolutely extraordinary. I never expected it to happen," Mr Cameron added. "It was just an idea over a pint of beer one evening. Each year we had a vote over whether we should do it again and after 10 years we launched it as an independent organisation.
"I think Bristol needed a summer show and it's grown into that as well as a balloon event. It's always been a non-profit making body, run by volunteers with any profit going into the next year."
Attending the fiesta has been a rite of passage for hundreds of thousands of people in Bristol and beyond with the mass ascents of around a hundred balloons living long in the memory.
The return to Ashton Court after an enforced three year absence gives it some much needed stability, Mr Cameron believes.
"We can't get bigger because of the park's size and there are not too many ideas we haven't thought of, so it'll probably stay the same for a bit," he said.
As will demand for the balloons produced at Mr Cameron's factory in Bedminster, a short hop from the Fiesta site. Producing around 100 a year, 90% go abroad and after a Covid-induced lull, the order books are filling up again.
Specially-shaped balloons intrigue audiences and Mr Cameron alike. A recent commission - Mr Globie - for a children's TV production company in The Netherlands has just completed test flights. It won't be at the fiesta this year but plenty will be, organisers promise.
Mr Cameron was at the cutting edge of designs away from the standard balloon shape, recalling one of his favourite early designs.
"I remember the T-Rex fondly," he said. "It was when we were working out the techniques of doing curved shapes. Until then we had been working on a drawing board so I started writing software, crude by today's standards but it worked."
The resilience of fiesta visitors, organisers and financial backers has been sorely tested, if not by foot and mouth disease and Covid, then by the weather. In 2019, Ashton Court had to be evacuated so serious was the wind and rain.
But Mr Cameron insists the weather doesn't bother him. "It'll be what it's going to be, there's no point losing sleep over it," he smiled.