Video: ESCAPE group is making a window for an Eastwood church.
Nottinghamshire residents who watched a fire destroy a church more than 50 years ago are commemorating its rebuild half a century on.
St Mary’s Church, in Eastwood, was destroyed after two 15-year-old boys set it alight in March 1963.
The demolition of the remains of the old church took place early in 1966 and the rebuilding process began soon after.
Community group ESCAPE, standing for Eastwood Senior Citizens Arts Project Enterprise, is helping to celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the rebuilding of the church by creating a stained glass window.
The group is made up of elderly women who come together to create pieces of stained glass.
Their work features in the Queen’s Medical Centre and the Defence of Geneva’s European Parliament.
And they are now creating the window, which is one-metre-square, to be installed in the entrance of the Eastwood church.
The window includes a dove representing peace and the 50 coloured leaves on the Tree of Life.
Valerie Beecham watched the fire destroy the church and is helping the create the window.
She said: “I always wanted to have a go. It’s so easy and therapeutic. It’s really encouraging as it shows you things you thought you couldn’t do.
“I went out in the evening and I could smell varnish burning. I came back and said it smelled like a bonfire.
“When I went to work the following morning and came up Church Street, the church was smouldering. There were wet hymn books, it was really awful.”
Jean Kirkham also witnessed the church go up in flames.
She added: “I was a very young teenage, I was at home. I could see it from where I lived. They couldn’t put it out immediately.”
The ESCAPE group is meeting every Thursday for 10 weeks to get together and create the window.
Stella Chadwick, artist and leader of the project, said: “The ESCAPE group is for elderly women who want to escape the isolation of being stuck at home.
“The outside of the window is based on some stonework that’s in the church. I’ve put some colour in it to warm it up. The tree is the Tree of Life and the leaves actually represent healing which is a very nice meaning for it. And also we’ve got the Dove of Peace.
“The idea is we want as many people as possible. In the end you finish with this window which is the product of lots of people’s works. Even if you’ve put foil around one piece of glass, you’ve been part of making that window and it’s integral to the window.”
The work that goes into creating the stained glass window includes glass cutting, grinding, copper foiling and soldering.
