After 67 years, Vincent Tuzo is about to relinquish his throne as the Kite King.

The 72-year-old man said he began stringing and pasting kites together when he was only five-years-old.

But after years in the kite making business, Mr. Tuzo has decided to put down his glue, pack away his guillotine and make 2006 his final year for making kites to sell. ?After this I?ll make about a dozen for personal use or for my grandchildren,? he said. ?I have to take a break because my eyes are telling me something different.?

Mr. Tuzo began selling his kites when he was only a little tyke after his mother had insisted on perfection and refused to allow him to fly them until they were just so.

From then on he became the Kite King and his kites are still sought after. In fact, while Mr. Tuzo was being interviewed, one customer, who had come to purchase three kites from his Valley Road, Paget home, simply said: ?His kites fly.?

Mr. Tuzo said: ?I began selling kites for a three pence (thruppence) and back then tissue paper came in a sheet and this line, which is the same that I used back then was a only a shilling. But today the same ball is $3.25.?

Mr. Tuzo?s early kites were made out of something he called ?pond sticks?, a thin stick that resembles a reed except it is not hollow. In later years, he moved onto the sticks that are now used in Bermuda kite making.

?You get them out of the pond and they grow about nine-feet high,? said Mr. Tuzo. ?You don?t see them out Pembroke Dump now, but you still see them in Paget Marsh. It has a stalk on it, and they are the lightest sticks in Bermuda. That is what we used to fly kites with, but that got played out, when these sticks came in.?

The kites take over his entire home and existence for three months before Good Friday.

In just about every room except the kitchen, there are kites hanging from the ceilings and walls. In past years, they also took over his bedroom and bed and he would tell his late wife Elisa to mind the kites.

But kite making has all gotten a bit much and he wants to retire from his art.

?Every year, it?s the same thing and many times I would take a month off work and from eight o?clock in the morning to two o?clock in the morning ? I would just be making kites,? he said. ?Each kite takes about three hours and if no one disturbs me I can break it down to two and a half. It is a gift.?

But in making the kites, there is a special process to make sure that the work lasts until the day it is sold, so he keeps all his windows closed to ensure that the sun does not draw the paper.

He explained: ?Just the heat alone from the sun hitting the glass it draws the paper and it changes or fades the colour. That is why you see the venetians are down and the curtains are drawn.?

In previous years, he sold his kites in Masters and in other locations, but to keep the prices reasonable for his customers he only now sells out of his home. The kites are priced $15 and $20. His walls also feature interestingly made ancient kites, faded by the years, that he has refused to toss out. He has pictures of a kite that is 13 in one and numerous other memorabilia of a life with the kites.

Mr. Tuzo has seen the art of not only making, but flying kites on the Island as a dying tradition.

?Back then you had to figure out where you would fly a kite there were so many lines coming across your house, but nowadays people say kites make too much noise,? Mr. Tuzo said.

?We used to see who could put their kite up the quickest and out the farthest. We had a contest and we were fighting up in the air.

? Then kites used to put people to sleep, because back then you were in your tin house.

?Also there were like 100 kites in an area, but today you might see about six or so traditional kites flying in an area.?

Mr. Tuzo has flown kites all over the Island including Pembroke Dump on a raft. He has a record of flying the same kite for 49 hours straight.

?I flew a kite from Somerset to St. George?s and back on a boat,? he said. ?I also flew a kite upside down at Shelly Bay.?

Sometimes people would say, ?Oh I want a pretty kite?, but when you let it out for a 1,000 yards, the colour seems altogether different.

?Back then the most popular colours were black and white, or red, white and blue, or black and red, or pink and black. Up in the air you would see a black and white spinning there, no matter how far it goes out.?

When asked about the amount of kites that he thought he had made over the years, he said: ?I have made a few thousand, because back in the days we only had lamps. So sometimes I had made 150 and I also used scissors ? I didn?t have a guillotine then.

?People used to make kites for their families, but I used to make kites for people all over Bermuda.?

He said a former UBP politician wanted to make flying kites at night illegal, but he said: ?That wind out there doesn?t belong to the UBP and it doesn?t belong to the PLP and I go out and fly a kite on a moonlit night even now.?