Kes /kɛs/ is a 1969 British drama film directed by Ken Loach (credited as Kenneth Loach) and produced by Tony Garnett, based on the 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave, written by the Hoyland Nether-born author Barry Hines. Kes tells the story of Billy, who comes from a working-class and dysfunctional family and is a no-hoper at school, who seems destined for a dreary future working in the local coal mine like his bullying elder brother. Billy, however, discovers his own private means of temporary escape and fulfilment when he steals a fledgling kestrel from its nest in the surrounding countryside and proceeds to train it in the art of falconry, which he teaches himself from a similarly stolen book. We follow Billy's escapades through the final weeks of his schooling, some comic, some bleak a