Introduction and photos by our Chair, Susan Bradbury

At our recent symposium in Sacred Heart Church in Cumbernauld we were joined by Jim Belkeviz, who as a teenage school leaver had worked for Sadie Mc Lellan during the manufacture of the dalle de verre windows – those spectacular walls of concrete and glass that turn the stark architecture of Sacred Heart Church into a jewelled casket of spiritual light. We asked Jim to write down his memories as he is one of the very few people who has been an assistant to Sadie, who normally preferred to work alone.

The two photographs show the way the chunky glass is surrounded by substantial areas of concrete. Both show the same detail, the Pious Women of the 8 th Station of the Cross. Seen from outside, the concrete is pale and the colour indiscernible, but from inside the rich colour is enhanced by the strong black. The image is powerful either way.

There are more photos in the report on the SSGT visit to Sacred Heart report in the Symposium section of this website. For more information on McLellan, please see the previous blog “Don’t call it a Craft: A Spotlight on Sadie McLellan” written by Rona Moody.

Here are Jim’s memories:

“Before I worked for Sadie McLellan I had been an apprentice in a shipyard but part of it closed and we were out. I started with Sadie in her Black Street studio. Her Husband Walter Pritchard had a studio upstairs. He was head of murals at GSA.

An artist called Gavin Alston was a teacher at my school. A great artist who died at 37. He was quite a character. He taught at Glasgow Art school too. He was a friend of Sadie and her husband Walter.

Apart from making sure the panels cured slowly from the inside, I had to check that the wooden formers around the panels didn’t get damaged and fix them if they did. Sadie would weld the armatures herself. She was a strong woman, formidable, she could do everything herself. We had a couple of arguments and I walked out once. She shouted down the stairs and said she had made a cup of tea. I went back up.

I would sometimes go to the chemist for some spirit of salt. I don’t think you could get that easily today. Very powerful acid. We used it to clean concrete from the glass. Because the windows were load bearing walls she had to be careful about the concrete mix. She consulted with construction experts from a University.

I seem to remember the Archbishop of Washington came to speak to her about a window in the USA. She had small preparatory pieces of work for him. I believe he only spoke to three artists in Europe.

I would see her husband Walter going up stairs sometimes with a brown bag of cans of Guinness past her door. I’m sure she knew but she would ask me if I saw her husband. I said no but she just smiled. I seem to remember she told me that Walter converted to Catholicism. She said she waited outside of a church when they were abroad when he was inside. I think Walter went to Italy a few times to work on some church art.

Sadie’s brother Robert McLellan was a playwright and I remember she asked me to go the post office and send a telegram saying good luck on the opening night of his new play at the Lyceum in Edinburgh, I think.

I was only in her house once. It was a big town house in the west end. Victoria Circus? She seemed well off. Her husband Walter had a huge room where he worked on large paintings in a classical style.

I was very young at the time. Although she worked on so many churches she never spoke to me about religion. I wish I’d spoken to her about that. She told me she wasn’t happy with the monks at Pluscarden Abbey. They made out that her work had been done by them. She was amused about them squabbling when they were in such a spiritual and peaceful environment.

When the windows were finished both Walter and Sadie gave me references to go to college to get Highers, which I did, and later went to Glasgow School of Art and did drawing and painting.”

Note: Jim was subsequently an art teacher in Cumbernauld for many years. We have his permission to share these memories (written in July 2026) and to preserve them in the Scottish Stained Glass Trust archive.