Kidz (3)

Today I have arranged to take seven year old Cam to see a stained glass artist. He has been in love with stained glass for two or three years, since he was about five. I've been promising him this visit to Sally's workshop for about six months, and he has been fizzing with excitement ever since it was finally arranged a fortnight ago.

I collect him from his house at half past eight; we bus into the city centre, then walk leisurely along the north edge of the harbour. He is interested in everything: stopping to look in every hole, examining every detail, wanting history and explanation of every functioning or derelict harbourside artefact. I have to rush him the last few hundred metres, to arrive at Sally's workshop in time for ten.

Sally has just been burgled, precious glass work has been smashed. It's very good of her to still take us in. Cam tells her that his mum's friend, a teacher, had her phone stolen at school the day before; it's an impressive attempt at empathy, from a seven year old.

She has prepared some materials for making a small panel which Cam can take home with him. He looks reverently through the glass offcuts and scrap. He is attracted to the vivid reds and yellows, but eventually selects a punt moulded fish in a bottomless lucid blue glass. To this he adds a striated turquoise green float "because it looks like the sea".

As long as Sally is working, he is totally intent and absorbed. He asks occasional questions, but mostly watches in rapt attention. He is amazed by the cutting of the glass, intrigued by the lead – a metal that can be cut and moulded. Only when she has to stop and wait for the soldering iron to heat up does his attention wander: "Guess what?" he says, "I've got three pounds fifty!" With the iron hot, he is engrossed again: spellbound by the sight of another metal that turns from grey to silver and runs like water.

When we leave, he insists on carrying his stained glass panel himself. All the way home, he hugs it (safely wrapped in corrugated card) to his chest.