Everybody has their favourite time of the year; many enjoy Christmas and what it represents, while others put Cup Match at the top of their list. Then there is May 24 at the start of summer.

For Maxwell (Mackie) Burrows, Good Friday is the holiday in Bermuda. And he dedicates most of his trips abroad preparing for it.

You see, Mr. Burrows' passion is making kites, so while most people shop for clothes or electronic gadgets during their trips abroad, the Warwick man spends a lot of his time pushing a cart up and down the isles of his favourite department stores searching for, of all things, tissue paper! He shops for tissue paper with the same care as a woman sorting through designer outfits in a clothing store and his persistence has paid off with one of a kind designer paper that gives his kites a unique look. And he doesn't mind that his kite designs will soon be copied by other kite makers in Bermuda.

"I call them my designer kites,'' said Mr. Burrows as he sat in the living room of his home off Cobb's Hill amidst dozens of finished and unfinished kites.

"People realise that when they go down to the park nobody is going to have a kite like that.'' Kites are everywhere in his home, leaning against the walls and even hanging from the open beam ceilings in two of the rooms. They are of every size, design and colour combination imaginable, some he even refers to as `girls' kites' because of certain colours or patterns and others small enough for babies.

And when those kites presently without paper are completed, Mr. Burrows estimates he will have made about 300 kites this year.

"Good Friday to me is like Christmas to a lot of people,'' said Mr. Burrows who started making kites for the neighbourhood children but also now retails them at two outlets, Sports Source in Warwick and the Universal Barber Shop.

"Just after Christmas all I start thinking about is kites. Good Friday would never end if I had a choice.'' Just the thing his wife Debra doesn't want to think about. She can't wait to restore some order in her home, though deep down she enjoys the activity, too.

"I don't have any problems with the kites, I'm glad it's a hobby for him and I personally think he's really good at it, but it's just that my house always looks a mess this time of year,'' said Mrs. Burrows.

She explained that ever since he has been making kites he makes one for his special goddaughter and also now makes smaller ones for his grandchildren.

"He's like a little kid in a toy store when it comes to looking for his paper, but it's all good.

"I like the excitement of it, he's excited about it and that makes me happy.

I'm happy that he picks out the right paper and that everything matches.'' It was Mrs. Burrows who encouraged her husband to start selling his kites after making too many to keep for himself. Now interested buyers even show up at his house to choose their kites.

"I said `you're making about 30 kites a year, you don't need to fly 30 kites, why not sell some of them','' explained his wife.

Like a skilled craftsman, Mr. Burrows makes kite making look easy. And he has found ways to cut down on the cost of his materials while also speeding up the process with more efficient tools like a two-foot ruler and better quality razors for cutting the paper. He estimates it takes him about 15 minutes to make a kite from scratch.

Mr. Burrows came to use the design paper about three years ago when he spotted it in a supermarket in Florida.

"They had some coloured paper hanging up in a package, I'm into the paper so I looked at it closely and discovered it was tissue paper,'' explained Mr.

Burrows.

"Most of the paper I get is from the Target stores in the States, they have a real big card selection. I didn't find much that (first) year but the following year I went away I had nothing else on my mind but finding this tissue paper.

"I knew there was designer tissue paper so every time I went away from that point on and went into a Target store I went straight to the card section.'' Mr. Burrows admits the design paper is more expensive than the usual tissue paper but it is worth the extra expense to have something different.

"I would spend a couple of hundred dollars on paper. I'm like a kid, I have a shopping card and I'm in the card section picking up `sissy' paper,'' he says without shame.

"Women are there looking at me thinking `this man's got all this paper, what is he doing'. They are frowning but I know what I'm doing. Every year I go to Florida in August and if I go away four times I'm getting paper each time.

"My wife goes and gets her clothes and I go to Target to get my paper. If there are 10 Targets in the area I'm going to all 10. I'm just looking for paper, I want to have the different stuff.'' Like most buys, Mr. Burrows grew up having fun with kites. He recalls growing up in Khyber Pass where an older man, Gino Brangman, made kites every year.

"He did what I'm doing now, he was the neighbourhood kite man,'' said Mr.

Burrows.

"He would always make a six-foot kite that we would all fly in the neighbourhood. I was one of those guys who might not have had hot cross buns but I had a kite! "Remember when a kite broke loose and you would see guys running after them? I was one of those guys. I would chase a kite down in a minute!'' Soon he was making his own, first starting out with fannel sticks and paper bags, held together by paste made from flour and water.

"Before I starting giving them to a couple of shops to sell, I would normally make 40, 50 kites just for the neighbourhood, the household and friends,'' he revealed.

"But now I'm up to close to 300 kites, there's about 250 that you see here, including the ones not pasted. My goal was to do 300 this year and I'll have close to 300.'' The bus driver has already made sure he has Good Friday off so as to enjoy his favourite holiday. He and some friends spend the night before Good Friday at one of their homes making the last of the kites.

"We all sit around and make kites but in the time they do one I'll make 10,'' he boasts.

"Every year I find an easier way of doing it. This year I have a longer ruler and so it's just one stroke (cutting) so that takes time off. The tools help and everything is measured to perfection. I have a system and no kites are alike.'' Bird kites are traditionally bought in stores, but Mr. Burrows makes his own.

"Everybody's buying bird kites, let me see if I could make one,'' he said.

"And I've been making one ever since. The main thing is making sure that it flew so I had to measure it right. As long as it's balanced right it will fly.

"I had to get regular sticks cut down so that they are a lot smaller and then put the right tail on it.'' Mr. Burrows isn't into making kites for profit -- and can ill-afford more business. He just loves doing something he's been doing most of his life.

"This year is my most productive year, but it's because of the people who know about the paper,'' he said.

"Last year I took 60 kites down to Sports Source and within two days those kites were gone and people were calling me, so I was scrambling to make more.

Then I took another 60 to Universal Barber Shop on Court Street and they were gone within a couple of hours. "I realise how popular they are getting, but I don't need any more business. If it gets that bad I'll just sell the frames and the paper so people can make their own kite. I'm not going to promise a whole bunch of kites I can't deliver.'' Like a candy store, the children in his neighbourhood are drawn to his house on Good Friday.

Macky's kitemaking is `art' "I see children who are just like I was,'' he revealed. "When Good Friday comes all the kids are around because they know I'm going to come out with some kites.'' Mr. Burrows, who has also won awards for his kites at the Agricultural Exhibition, including Best in Show, is happy to share kite making tips with others interested in keeping the Bermudian tradition alive.

"Just because you can make a good kite doesn't mean it's going to fly,'' he warns.

"The art of a kite is the loop and if it ain't got the right loop it ain't flying. Most people when they come and buy a kite, I'm putting the loop on for them. Some guys make their own kite and bring them here so I can put the loop on.'' Added Mr. Burrows: "I was invited to a few schools who wanted me to teach the kids how to make kites. You would be surprised at the number of fathers who don't do kites nowadays.

"There is a chef at Four Ways Inn who had been here a couple of years and had trouble with his kites and a friend told him to come and see me. He bought a kite from me and I put the loop on for him and 11 o'clock on Good Friday night he called me back and said `Mr. Burrows, I've never been so excited in my life, the kite was amazing'.

"I was shocked that he called me to thank me. At 11 o'clock at night he was still excited. He called me and wants to learn how to make one.'' Mr. Burrows puts a high standard on his work, even using wood glue instead of traditional kite paste. And he used bamboo instead of wire to support the headstick which is safer.

"I used to start off with flour and water (for paste) but of course cockroaches would eat the flour and water so you had to put a teaspoon of vinegar in it to chase away the cockroaches,'' he said.

"I hate using the kite paste. I make sure my kites are shop worthy, even though somebody would just come up here and pick it up,'' he assured.

"There is one kite in there with a stain on it when some guy came up here and rested a drink on a table and I said `I can't sell that, that has to be one of the neighbourhood give-aways'.

"The children call me Mr. Kite Man.'' Labour of love: Kite maker Mackie Burrows finishes off another of his spectacular kites. He is aiming for the 300-mark this year and was encouraged to start selling them by his wife, Debra.

Photos by Arthur Bean Kites by design Mackie Burrows with two of his kites made with his trademark special design paper. The "bird'' kite on the right is his own creation.