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p, up, up and away go hundreds of balloons every year over the city. And when the Balloon Fiesta is on, its mass ascents fill up the sky, and the Instagram uploading servers get hot, hot hot. Over the years, I have covered the Fiesta from inside the media tent and the odd rising basket, but this year I wanted to look a little closer at one key component in the balloon saga. Cameron Balloons. To be specific, their operation of balloon manufacturing that has been going on in Bedminster in that beautiful red brick building for a very long time. I wanted to see the balloons being made. This month’s heroes are the people inside the building, making every possible shape of balloon you can imagine.
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Nico is one of Cameron Balloons’s expert sewing machinists. She is Romanian, and when she told a Romanian crew at one of the launches that she had sewn their balloon it was emotional. That makes me smile.
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Cameron Balloons’s 600 basket. Ready to fly, pilot plus 32 passengers. When I heard those numbers, I was looking out the window and a bus went by halfempty. Could it not be better and more fun to get about by hot air, I thought. Took me a while to walk round this basket. All made in good old Bristol town.
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www.mediaclash.co.uk I BRISTOL LIFE I 35