Leaded lights in the Golden Hinde replica,

which is to be launched from the shipyard of J Hinks and Son, Appledore, on the evening of April 5, are the work of Mr John Ford, aged 22, whose mother, Mrs P Ford lives at 35 New Street, Torrington.

Altogether there are 15 such lights, and they are tinted antique green. Mr Ford has also included a few 100-year-old pieces of glass he had in his possession.

After attending Torrington County Secondary School, he did a three-year diploma course at Bideford School of Art. He had a spell with Dartington Glass at Torrington, and has more recently been one of three stained glass artists engaged in restoring windows of Salisbury Cathedral, where he still has more work to do.

In addition to his work in stained glass, Mr Ford does diamond point engraving on glass. To mark the building and launching of the Golden Hinde, he has attractively engraved ten Dartington Glass goblets with the theme. These numbered goblets, on view at the Gallery Marin, Irsha Street, Appledore, seem destined to become collectors’ pieces.

Mr Ford and his wife Geraldine (a daughter of Mr and Mrs G F Jewell, of Merley Road, Westward Ho!) have recently moved to Manor House Cottage, Diddywell, and he plans to convert a garage into a studio.

Gazette article dated 30 March 1973