And, Joanne, it would almost be an understatement to say that “Jabberwocky” is a nonsense poem.

The syntax represents perfect English. But the nouns and verbs are meaningless.

Now that David and I are soon to start painting the new window, we must be sure to create a window which does not follow the fate of this particular poem.

We want structure and meaning – and I know that silver-stain will play an important role here.

Joanne, Dr. Sweet’s entry is a tip of the hat to Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem “Jabberwocky”:

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Bill

It’s been a pleasure to read every single one of them, and a difficult task to pick just three winners …

A number of you – Enrique, Debs and Hugh – draw attention to the fact that a good design requires creativity and focus.

Exactly so: how could things be otherwise?

The stained glass window will exist for decades to come.

It will be seen by all manner of different people.

It must make the client happy.

And it must also be appropriate to the building and its wider setting (as Ruben surmises when he points to the shape of an abstract angel within the final version of the design – missing, however, from the earlier version).

We certainly believe that an architectural stained glass design cannot be rushed – that it must be allowed to take whatever time it needs.

And we sometimes find ourselves in a position where we need gently to revise our clients’ expectations.

So here’s where we will gently say that, No, we don’t have a catalogue of stock designs, and No, we don’t have a fixed repertoire of glass painting techniques, and Yes, we will design and make something that we haven’t attempted before.

Therefore, Yes, it’s certain that these new ideas will take time to emerge.

There’s therefore a whole process of discussion, reflection and observation that must occur before we can prepare the design. (This was also Svetlana’s thought when she discerned, within the design, an egg-like shape that required time to incubate.)

The point is that a good design is a vital pre-condition for the success of any stained glass window, in much the same way that well-prepared glass paint is a pre-condition for painting well on glass.

So it is certainly possible that someone can be too distracted or too tired to do their best.

In which case, the best thing to do is usually to rest and negotiate a breathing space.

But that’s not what happened here …

Several of you believed yourselves to sniff the intoxicating fumes of alcoholic vapour.

Now we don’t mind this suggestion from people like Theresa, William, Angela, Dallas and William – none of whom we’ve yet had the good fortune to meet.

But when it comes to Caroline, who’s actually spent time with us in the studio … well, we now realize that the studio’s wine vault is clearly not as hidden as we had naively thought.

Theresa developed the entertaining idea that we’d sent our crematorium design to the night-club owning client, whereas the crematorium in fact received our proposal for the night club … Ouch!

And Angela it was who whipped up further tension by introducing an army of paper-eating snails.

Don’t scoff at this idea but listen to this cautionary tale which follows: and remember, it is all true!

Five years ago, “Williams & Byrne” came into existence, but the builders hadn’t finished converting and restoring the idyllic studio which we now occupy.

Therefore we began life in the cellar of the 17th century townhouse in which I (Stephen) was then living.

A dark, dank place it was, more like a dungeon than anything else, but what were we to do? – We had orders to fulfil, so we had to work somewhere.

Thus it happened that, one evening, after a long day’s painting, we climbed upstairs, leaving two full-sized easels “bobbled up” with beautifully painted glass that we proposed to start firing the next day, after one last inspection in the morning.

Ah, woe is us for leaving these two stained glass saints, unfired and all alone at night, because, when we returned, imagine our horror and dismay when we discovered whole areas of unfired paint completely disappeared, with lines rubbed out everywhere.

We had to start again!

Our first thought was that the ceiling must have dripped condensation during the night.

But then we noticed a strange sparkling on the glass … and we realized this iridescence was a trail of snail.

No doubt attracted by the sugar in the gum Arabic, and under cover of darkness, an army of snails had wreaked havoc with our unfired painting.

We confess to a tiny piece of satisfaction from the thought that, although sweet, this was probably the snails’ last supper: then, as now, we don’t use lead-free glass paint.

So Angela’s suggestion of paper-eating snails brought back a painful – but we hope instructive – memory!

And, on that basis, there is nothing untoward with Ronald’s fine invention of pencil-eating squirrels.

Anyway, moving on from inebriation to full-scale addiction, Linda speculated about the real origin of David’s new moustache: she insists that closer inspection will reveal that David has in fact been snorting Reusche’s tracing black.

And Jeanne reckons the delay was caused by our using embalmers’ Formaldehyde as a painting medium – a nice touch of the sorely missed “B”-movie, that. Kelly (no doubt recognizing a distant physical resemblance between David and Vincent Price) goes one step further, and takes us down the path to murder and ghostly infestation.

Julia Williamson correctly foresaw a problem that indeed we had to overcome: R.C. has provided funds for the central window, but there are four others.

So the owners of the crematorium indeed asked us for a proposal for the whole façade, because they did not want to run the risk of piecemeal and haphazard design involving other stained glass studios.

Therefore we prepared a black-and-white sketch which depicted the whole of the gable end.

But it wasn’t this which caused the delay.

Nor was it missing tools (Dennis), nor plagiarism (either of us, as Roxane suggested, or by us, as Cindy wondered), nor building regulations (Jackie G.), nor problems with the kiln (Ian), nor an expenses scandal as Min suggested (we, unlike our MPs, employ some very fine accountants, and pay for them ourselves), nor injury to our painting hand (Pat), nor a change in specification from the architect (Ivan), nor the expanding design that David Kittrell proposed. (Beware, however, that this is indeed a very real threat if you neglect to dry the glass that you’ve just grozed on the grinder: the water will indeed cause the tracing paper to crinkle and expand, with potentially disastrous consequences when it comes to fitting, since the sizes are now all wrong.)

The owl attracted the most attention from you all, including Joanne, Francesca, Bill Wrobel, Marian, Julia, Pip, Kerry, Alyson (with a fine homage to A. A. Milne featuring Williams the Pooh and his dear friend little Byrnelet).

And nearly as many proved to us that you could also make your living as wandering poets: Dr Sweet, Jackie C., Jenny, Steven, and Graeme – these fine offerings range from the suggestion that we were delayed by order of Her Majesty the Queen to the exquisitely impenetrable notion that we’ve been larking and tandling with the light.

(If so, let’s hope ‘twill be brillig indeed.)

Jackie C. also introduced a darker note of sombre realism when she wondered about a landslide, and Michael ventured that the apertures were out of alignment.

We think that’s everyone, and our apologies for any unintended omissions, so there are now two big questions.

What really happened?

And who are the three winners?

Now we are sorry that we can’t send brushes to everyone, so we hope that everyone will be enthralled by the fine examples of 17th century leaded lights that we will e-mail to you all in due course.

As for what really happened, we won’t embellish this story in any way, because it is all too awful if you just imagine for a moment how it must have felt.

When the building came near to being completed, a close inspection revealed that the central window was accidentally six inches off-centre. Therefore the builders had to demolish and re-build the whole of the gable end. Therefore we had to wait until the newly constructed window was officially signed off before we could be absolutely certain of the sizes.

Although we said that accuracy would not necessarily be rewarded, Michael Zappert will receive two fine English tracing brushes on account of his amazing chain of reasoning.

Jackie Carey wins the second prize for combining insight with poetry.

And Dr. Sweet wins the first prize for sheer madness (his answer, not him).

Thank you all so much for every one of your entries.

I just can’t wait …

So tell us: what really caused the delay?

For this purpose, time and heat are necessary, so that, from an egg a fine bird (or a crocodile ) will emerge …

Some time is required for maturing of this form.

Now time has passed and the warmth has arrived.

And the project is finally ready for continuation.

Who had taken them?

The kids? No, they say!
The kids next door? Also a NO!
Other children in the neighbourhood? No, no, NO

Seeking for clues … Hey, a pencil in the garden … and another … and one more … Where do they lead us?

To the trees! The squirrels had taken them. But why? The window may become nicer than them!