Glass panels apt for Quiet Room

Stained-glass panels give a special dimension to Hospice Marlborough's new Quiet Room, which will be opened with the other extensions on November 17. It will provide a place where patients, family members and staff can go to reflect, pray or talk in private.

On Friday, floor-to-ceiling coloured glass panels were installed after a generous gift by Geoffrey T Sowman funeral directors.

Its manager Barry Hayman visited the hospice on Friday to watch them being fitted and was pleased with the effect.

Geoffrey T Sowman liked to support a community organisation or project each year, he said, and this year Hospice Marlborough was chosen.

After discussions with staff, it was decided that having stained-glass windows fitted would give the Quiet Room an extra sense of serenity. To ensure it offered that to people of all religions and spiritual beliefs, it was important that they be different to stained-glass windows traditionally used in churches.

Blenheim artist JS Parker was approached to design them.

Mr Parker, whose work inspired a recent exhibition, Lines of Light and Space, said he chose translucent glass and stayed away from heavy colours.

"I have done vertical paintings with horizontal bands, so I used that kind of construction."

Following Mr Parker's design, The Glasshouse in Christchurch made one window including blue and aqua-coloured panes, and a second with amber colours.

Mr Hayman said he was pleased with the window's effects.

Since the initial planning stages, he had been diagnosed with cancer, which had given the project a personal relevance.

Recent and impending surgery had given him a better understanding of the support and care needed by families whose loved ones had serious or terminal illnesses, he said.