David "Dai" Bradley (born 27 September 1953) is an English actor known for his debut role of Billy Casper in the critically acclaimed 1969 film Kes, directed by Ken Loach. Early life David Bradley was born in the hamlet of Stubbs, near Barnsley. His mother was Nora, a seamstress, and his father was Horace "Pop" Bradley, a miner who worked from North Gawber Colliery. By his own account, he had an "unremarkable" childhood, and was not involved in any acting apart from amateur Christmas pantos. Career At the age of 14, he gained the part of Billy Casper in Kes. Bradley has said that the making of the film was a happy one. The cast was "like one huge family" and he spent much of his time playing with the other young boys who appeared in the film. One of his least favorite memories was of the filming of the football scene, which he recalled in an interview: "They chose the worst day of the summer for that scene. They had a local fire engine come round and flood the field with hundreds of gallons of water. Although it was August, it was bloody cold and freezing." Bradley spent several hours after each day's filming training with the three kestrels used in the film. One of the birds did not take to the training, and had to be reintroduced to the wild. Director Ken Loach often used unique methods to elicit authentic emotional reactions from Bradley, such as surprising him with a barking dog, caning him unexpectedly, and telling him that his costar would truly kill a kestrel for the final scene. He received BAFTA's Award for Best Newcomer for his role. The film required extensive time training the two kestrels used for the film. One critic called Bradley's performance "one of the great adolescent portraits in cinema, joining the likes of Jean-Pierre Leaud in The 400 Blows". Bradley left school at the age of 17. He moved to London and began training as an actor with the National Theatre Company. In time, he worked with Anthony Hopkins, Joan Plowright and Derek Jacobi. Bradley changed his first name to Dai when he joined Equity, the actors' union, who already had an actor named David Bradley on their books. Later projects After Kes was released in 1970, Bradley joined the cast of the children's television programme The Flaxton Boys as Peter