In the latest Bristol Breakfasts interview, Bristol Culture editor Martin Booth speaks to Cameron Balloons founder Don Cameron ahead of the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta which runs from today until Sunday. Illustration by James Alexander.

Look up to the skies anywhere in the world and if you see a hot air balloon, there is a good chance that it has been made in Bedminster by Cameron Balloons.

There is something intrinsically magical about hot air balloons and even in Bristol, a city which is a global leader in their manufacture, our eyes are invariably drawn upwards whenever one glides serenely overhead.

He may have been making them now for more than 60 years, starting in the basement of a former home where he used to own one of the obelisks on Cotham Park before moving production to the nearby St Matthew’s church hall, but that magical quality still drives Cameron Balloons founder Don Cameron.

We meet in the cafe of the Holland House Mercure hotel in Redcliffe, Cameron’s choice as it is somewhere with parking within easy distance of the Cameron Balloons headquarters on St John’s Street, the world’s biggest hot air balloon factory tucked away opposite a McDonald’s drive-through.

I arrive about 20 minutes before our scheduled meeting time and watch a parade of silver-haired gentlemen enter the lobby. Yet undoubtedly none are the first man to cross the Sahara and the Alps by balloon, nor made the first balloon flight between the UK and the former USSR.

75-year-old Cameron is initially reluctant to give too much away unless it’s the scientific properties of hot air balloons, at one point explaining in detail to me the principals of how they get off the ground.

But fuelled by a biscuit and a coffee, he soon warms to his themes.

“Ballooning is sort of magical, and no matter how long you’ve been in it, it still appears magical. You defy gravity. Magic is the feeling that you have. But of course, it isn’t magic really, it’s science.”

With the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta starting today, talk soon turns to the event which regularly attracts some half a million visitors.

“The Balloon Fiesta has become a bit of an institution. When we started it we had less than 20 balloons and we had no infrastructure at all, we just gathered in the park (Ashton Court).

“I think somebody managed to get a little wagon that dished out some sandwiches in the morning. There was no crowd because no one really knew it was on.”

It’s certainly grown into a slightly larger event these days – with this year’s Fiesta promising the usual spectacle of night glows on Thursday and Saturday nights, and the familiar spectacle of mass ascents and special shapes, all weather permitting of course.

None of this would be possible without Scotland-born Cameron’s engineering skill. The idea of using modern fabric and propane burners was first devised in America and then replicated by Cameron and a keen group of friends from the Bristol Gliding Club who built the first modern hot air balloon in western Europe.

Cameron and his team have been innovating ever since. He even, only slightly tongue in cheek, envisages a dream world for ballooning.

“The proportion of people that own and fly a hot air balloon is very small, it’s a specialised thing. But I can’t see a reason why everybody wouldn’t want to do that. Imagine a world in which everybody had a hot air balloon! It’s conceivable shall we say, but not probable.”

The work at Cameron Balloons has become so specialised that they are often called upon for other projects especially ones that need large-scale sewing, leading to commissions for the Oscar-winning film Gravity and Luke Jerram’s water slide down Park Street.

When he is not building or flying balloons, Cameron is a town councillor in his hometown of Portishead and a convener with the Bath Royal Literary & Scintific Institution, arranging speakers and lecturers.

Cameron tells me that he would like to carry on what he is doing forever, “and so far so good”, but rather unusually for someone still alive he already has a blue plaque in his honour on Canon’s Way.

“Ballooning has quite a long history and it has a lot of characters in it. Whether I’ll be remembered as one of these characters, who knows? That’s for others to say.”

“It’s hard to generalise but I live in an area where I do see deprivation. I feel that there’s still a journey to go. But nations fall and rise and I’m hoping that it will be on the rise again.”

Mercure Bristol Holland House Hotel

Redcliffe Parade East, Bristol, BS1 6SQ

0117 968 9900