Ken Loach's 1969 drama Kes considered one of the finest examples of British social realism. The film tells the story of Billy, a working-class boy who finds escape and meaning when he takes a fledgling kestrel from its nest. David Forrest's study examines the genesis of the original novel, Barry Hines's A Kestrel for a Knave (1968), the eventual collaboration that brought it to the screen, and the film's funding and production. Forrest draws on archival sources and insights from behind the scenes to shed new light on Kes's most celebrated moments, and considers the film's legacy, both in terms of its place in British film history and as a document of political, social and cultural value. He makes a case for the film's renewed relevance in our present era of systemic economic and regional inequality, alienated labour, increasingly narrow educational systems, toxic masculinity and ecological crisis. Kes endures, he argues, because it points towards the possibility for emancipation and fulfilment through a responsive and nurturing approach to education, a more delicate and symbiotic relationship with landscape and the non-human, and an emotional articulacy and sensitivity shorn of the rigid expectations of gender.