Memorial Window for Dr. Robert Moody  

Usually when I'm designing a new window, I don't have much information - a couple of lines of text, a colour preference, some small clue to the person. For this window, I had a huge amount of information - however discussing possible subjects with my family and a group of people from St. Margaret's, I realised that there was a lot I didn't know, or had forgotten about my father and his many interests.

After lengthy discussions, it was agreed to take as a start the hymn "All my hope on God is founded", one of my father's favourites. It has a line "beauty springeth out of naught", and playing around with this idea, I gradually found that I was working towards a Creation Window, with the six days lending themselves both thematically and symbolically.  

Day 1: Let there be light  

I made an explosion of light surrounded by very dark blue glasses. look closely and you'll see soldered in place a copper tube, mimicking the Carrick Detonator assisting the bang! My father developed this, the first safe detonator, at ICI Nobel, and was proud of the fact that it saved countless lives.  

Day 2: Separating the waters and heaven  

I had originally planned to do The window in place something like the sunset over Fairlie Moors, a spectacular local separation of water and air, then I realised I'd need to put in land - too early!  

Day 3: The creation of land, of plants and trees  

A general suggestion of plants, one of the trees has apples on it; a reference to the hymn "Jesus Christ the apple tree". To the side is a small group of snowdrops (in the language of flowers, the snowdrop stands for "Hope", so referring back to the original theme).  

Day 4: The creation of the sun, the moon and the stars  

Again I used flashed glasses which I etched with acid to make the stars and galaxies. My father was a chemist, and scientists believe all of the chemical elements were formed by nuclear reactions in stars.  

Day 5: The creation of fish and fowl  

There are various birds etched such as terns and a seagull. Although the majority of the fish are just loosely drawn, there is a small etched fish to the right which copies a fish in one of the spoons my father made. He often used decorative fish, the Chinese symbol for happiness, on his silver work.  

Day 6: The creation of things that walk on the earth  

As well as man and woman, I put in various animals including, to the left, a rather plump cat with a couple of mice. My father was very fond of the Celtic version of "The Lion shall lie down with the Lamb" which said that the cat will lie down with the mice. To the right, there's a seal (a mammal, not a fish!) which is what Rona means in Gaelic, so it's my signature. Many creation windows have animals from all round the world; I decided that I wanted a Scottish window so have put in Scottish animals!

All the days are contained in what could have been a Celtic spiral instead turned into the DNA double helix, the building blocks of life, which was discovered at the same time my father was completing his PhD. I used green for the helix, to symbolise God, evergreen and everlasting.

Outside the spiral are diamonds of pale glass which are deliberately imperfect. Some of these have images etched onto them - the background to the window shows some of God's creations which my father thought were especially lovely - tormentils, oystercatchers, skylarks and of course St. Margaret's Church.

The heavily-textured glasses for the sea and the sun came from English Antique glass - expensive, difficult to work with, and like no other glass in the world. I etched flashed glasses - glasses which have a colour layered on top of another paler colour - to reveal both colours in one piece. I also used silver stain, which when fired adds yellow and golds.

The window contains some pieces of dichroic glass - my father would have been fascinated by its development - and its inclusion means that even when it's dark outside there is still a small glitter of light in the window.

There are also a few special glasses in the window - there is a small piece of glass which came from the old garage (which is where Jean and Alastair Todd's house now is) and a piece which was given to me by my teacher, Lawrence Lee who also became a friend of my parents.  

RONA MOODY