My father's part in the Way of the Cross

The first nudge had come earlier, at the funeral of a deeply loved relative, when the priest delivered his eulogy. He said that my gentle cousin, also an artist, had expressed to him his lifelong admiration of my father's Stations of the Cross at St Paul's church in Foxbar, Paisley; that he'd come to appreciate, even envy, the enduring legacy of his artistic talent. To hear this said aloud after so many unspoken years struck me like a blow to the heart. Until that moment, few in attendance had appreciated that my dad's life's work was hanging largely unseen only a few miles away; it was as if my cousin was bestowing his own generous gift on my father.

Fr Frank Hannigan, who delivered that eulogy, is the parish priest at St Paul's, and chaplain to the Royal Alexandra Hospital - where he'd first met and ministered to my cousin. After the funeral he seemed interested to meet us, the family of the forgotten parishioner who, exactly 50 years previously, was busy making the Stations of the Cross for his church, the foundation stone of which was blessed and laid on June 21, 1964, and which a few months later had received those 14 pictures that so beautifully tell the story of Christ's Crucifixion. They remain in place today, and have never been moved.

The Stations of the Cross date from Medieval times and are present on the walls in every Catholic church. Whether paintings, reliefs or sculptures their purpose is to tell the story of Jesus' final hours, from being condemned to death to carrying the cross to his Cruxificion and laying in the tomb. The tradition of moving around the Stations to commemorate the Passion of Christ began is most commonly done during Lent, especially on Good Friday.

Most of the other Stations of the Cross I am familiar with in other churches are pretty ancient, the artist or sculptor anonymous, long forgotten by mere mortals. Perhaps that's as it should be. Yet I understand it's unusual for the family of the maker of such traditional religious artefacts to be still living.

Even so, I'd hesitated to write about this for fear my dad, who died ten years ago, wouldn't have wanted me to draw attention to his sacrifice. He rarely if ever referred to his work (neither, incidentally, did he discuss the magnificent portrait of Mgr Pirie, Vicar General of the Diocese of Paisley, that he was commissioned to paint in 1954, and which lies in a drawer at Blairs Museum in Aberdeen). So I think I'd have left it at that. However, it emerged last month that at the grand old age of 50, St Paul's is being mothballed. This devastating news firmed my resolve to describe now, rather than wait until Easter, the significant part my dad played in its being - not least because it illustrates how churches are built by the people, and that the people are the church.

Put another way, that without people there can be no church.

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When I return there to talk with Fr Frank, there's a huge, temporary heater in a corner, its extraction hose poking out of a hole in the wall; buckets are dotted around the floor to catch water from the leaky roof; the original metal-framed windows, high up on the walls, are stained with black mould. Yet it remains a serene and beautiful space, filled with natural light and the unheard echoes of invisible congregations. It's strange to be here when it's so empty and quiet; to see my Dad's Stations of the Cross still in the same positions as they were when I was a little child, virtually untouched by time but facing an uncertain future, is deeply moving.

I kneel in the same pew we once used as a family, and turn my head, as I often did, towards my childhood favourite: Number XIV, Jesus is Laid in the Tomb. I used to like the stripy angel's wings protecting the sacred body, the tones of blue and green, the sense of peace it conveyed. I imagine myself as that child proudly wearing my Sunday best: a brown flecked tweed suit with leather-covered buttons and pleated skirt, sewn by Mum, and almost identical to those she made for my sisters; the knots in the wood of the pew I used to trace with my pencil and paper, no doubt during the Sermon, still exactly the same.

I walk round and peer at Dad's leaded glass images, all ten feet off the ground, and in their pearlescent white panels I see familiar circular whorls in them. My mind comes alive with the memory of waking one bright Saturday morning, aged 5 or 6, and being ushered into the living room by my Dad, who excitedly directs me, still in my Winceyette pyjamas, towards the 1950s cream tiled fireplace. On each tile I see a different design, drawn in pencil. There are diamonds, squares, Paisley Pattern-type teardrops, plaids, ovals, oblongs, squiggles, tangents. Dad asks me to choose my favourite. I don't hesitate: I love the perfect little circles. In my mind's eye I can still see their outline on those tiles, neatly drawn by Dad in sharpened HB pencil while he was trying to decide which background to use.

The clear and painted leaded glass was placed as one over the detailed illustrations painted on a single sheet of paper, so every measurement had to be absolutely precise. The lettering across the bottom of each one, hand-painted in capital letters with a thin hair brush, had to be perfect, for any mistake would have meant re-doing the entire sheet all over again. Dad even matched the grey surround panels to the hue of the church's stone walls, and his frames to the wooden pews.

And here they are still.

It's a relief to put Dad's name to the artworks, as they are not signed and there is no plaque to attribute them to David Devine. I am saddened to see that his name is missing from the glossy brochure published in June to mark the Golden Jubilee celebration and thanksgiving Mass said by the Right Reverend John Keenan, the 5th Bishop of Paisley.

The harsh reality is that St Paul's - never the richest of parishes - is crippled by debt in a congregation that has shrunk to around 145. This is a decrease of 40% between 2009 and 2012, most noticably among young families. Baptisms are down 65%, Confirmations by 90% and weddings by 70% since the opening of the church in 1964. Actually the average number of weddings per year over the last 20 years is two. This means, of course, that money coming in through weekly plate collection is drastically reduced, culminating in a £30,000 annual shortfall in running costs, which has been being met with Diocesan funds. The church building itself is in need of £65,000 worth of essential repairs; the pipes of original underfloor heating system are cracked and rusted beyond repair and the whole lots needs to be torn up and replaced, with the loss of the priceless original marble floor; the roof leaks and the wiring system is nearing the end of its life. Fr Hannigan explains that it costs £10,000 a year to heat and light the church. On top of that, £10,000 is needed for essential work on the church house and a further £15,000 on the church hall. So, while an urgent fundraising campaign has been launched to help save St Paul's, Mass is now being said in the church hall next door to cut costs. Parishioners are being asked to donate £10 a week - an echo of the St Paul's Sweep, co-organised by my father and his neighbours between 1960 and 1964 to help build the church in the first place.

It transpires that Dad was never paid for making the Stations of the Cross; although St Paul's own records have the receipts for the other commissioned works of art, like the tabernacle, candlesticks, oak altar, crucifix and statues, all made by McGill's in Dublin, there is nothing to show that money changed hands between my dad and Fr Luke Brady, the founding parish priest who commissioned him. There are sketches of a rather elaborate design proposed by McGill's (three-foot low-relief polychrome panels enclosed by thin metal frames, each to be mounted on a seven-foot timber cross), and though there's no quote it's likely they'd have cost thousands of pounds, so the assumption is that in order to save money Fr Brady decided to ask my dad to do them instead. There was a certain logic in that: Dad, who'd returned from the war to finish his degree at Glasgow School of Art, was a gifted artist and art teacher at St Pius' Secondary in Drumchapel (he later became Principal Teacher of Art at Bellarmine Secondary, Pollok, until he retired in 1981).

My siblings and I doubt if Dad expected to be paid: the 1960s was an era where skilled parishioners would do work for the church on a voluntary basis and it would have been anathema, even sinful, to think of submitting an invoice. This may seem strange in the modern secular age, but it's worth remembering that such acts of piety, humility and devotion, even in the most difficult circumstances, were the daily norm for the thousands of faithful who moved to the newly created postwar housing scheme of Foxbar in Paisley (it was built in 1958 for 15,000 residents, and Mass for its 5000 Catholics was said at Foxbar Primary School, renamed St Paul's Primary School when St Paul's parish was founded in 1960, until the church was opened in 1964).

It's yet more humbling to think that our dad was around 47, the father of four young children all living in a tiny council flat in Spey Avenue, and struggling to get by on his and my mum's lowly teacher's salaries (dad taught full-time all his working life and retired on about a third of today's average annual salary). Yet he also helped run the St Paul's Sweep, a parishioners' fundraising campaign to help meet the cost of building the church, and would devote his Sunday afternoons to it with other friends in the parish. Christians of other denominations in the neighbourhood also donated.

I remember as a very young child going to Mass at St Pauls' Primary School assembly hall during the years the church was being built; it was so cold I used to cuddle into my mum's furry coat for comfort.

After Mass we'd all walk back home for lunch, which would be mingled with the smell of oil paint emanating from the tiny bedroom Dad had commandeered for his 18-month project. The bunk beds that used to occupy it were my sisters', and had been moved to the "big" bedroom with my wee brother and me. Four of us slept in that room, also the playroom, for all that time. Piled with dolls and toy cars and clothes and scooters, it was heated by a coal fire: it was to be years before central heating reached council housing. Dad's temporary studio had no heating at all, and he spent many anguished hours fretting that the paint he was using had seized up in the icy cold. I remember linseed oil being used a lot as a softener.

Although we were banned from entering the hallowed room we remember the palette knives he used to mix his paint; piles of differently shaped glass pieces; paint-laden rags; the position of his large easel facing inwards from the north-facing window overlooking the fields that led down to Elderslie. Lengths of H-shaped leading wound around a cardboard bobbin, and my young brother - thinking it looked like toy railway track - being told off for trying to bend it. Dad also made the heavy oak frames, which seemed to us like giant structures when they emerged from that tiny room. Each picture was stacked against a wall as it was finished. Cousins remember our gran shaking her head in anxious admiration at the absolute focus her son had on his task during her visits to us. "He'd sit smoking his pipe and staring into the fire without saying anything, then suddenly he'd brighten, excuse himself and go into the studio to do something more," she said. No wonder he was absorbed by it: the attention to detail is breathtaking, and only really visible when viewed close-up in our photographs (our wonderful photographer had to climb a tall ladder for each shot).

There's no record of any ceremony to mark the installation of the Stations of the Cross (I understand St Paul's was never consecrated, either because it has always been in the red, or through simple administrative error.) The only acknowledgement I can glean from existing parishioners is that the second parish priest, Fr Kieran Gallagher, told the congregation some time in the 1980s that they were "donated by a parishioner".

Fifty years on, we struggle to discern through the mists of time whether Dad was disappointed not to be recognised for his supreme effort; but we content ourselves with the absolute belief that he took on the job on the understanding it was to be his gift to the Church.

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Paisley Diocese has committed to not closing any parishes during the next 12 months - in order to give them time to prove they can be viable. But as they'd have to meet their own running costs, it means St Paul's has to achieve £30,000 by next November 2015.

Using the church for other purposes, like flats or an activity centre, isn't an option in a relatively poor residential area, and the cost of demolition can be prohibitive. Parishioners have been urged to gift-aid £10 each to the St Paul's 50th anniversary restoration fund on JustGiving website, and one young man who has undertaken to walk 500 miles from France to Santiago de Compostella has already raised £3585.

Earlier this week, Fr Hannigan told me the response to the crisis has been "a happy surprise". Monthly income has soared by extra £700 through plate collections and fundraising. "People have really rallied round and they are getting involved," he said. "Around 40 parishioners have signed up to new gift-aid donations, and a further 40 have begun standing orders into the parish coffers. Plate collections have almost doubled to around £600. We're looking at reaching £10,000 in this financial year."

Even more heartening is the beginning of a return to Mass. Attendance has increased from 145 to around 190 since the announcement was made.

Fr Frank tells me his favourite of Dad's Stations is, like mine, Number XIV. In the textured blue cover over Jesus' body he sees the Water of Life, and in the angel the message that there is life after death.

"This is our Calvary, but it's not our Crucifixion," says the pastor of St Paul's. "I feel we're having a Resurrection moment."

PANEL

The name comes from standing stationary before an image of some of the scenes associated with Jesus carrying the cross on the way to execution.

The custom was started by the early followers of St Francis of Assisi. He had introduced the crib as a way of helping people imagine the birth of Jesus. The first Franciscans followed this up with pictures that would help the faithful imagine his death. After the failure of the Crusades it became difficult for Christians to travel to Jerusalem. Churches were therefore decorated with scenes of the Way of the Cross and believers were encouraged to stand for a few moments meditating on each image, especially during Lent.

This simple devotion was partly lost at the Reformation. It was restored in its present form of 14 "stations" by St Alphonsus Liguori, a contemporary of John Wesley. A great hymn writer, like Wesley, he looked for ways to make Christian doctrine intelligible to the illiterate. Many great artists have painted scenes from the Way of the Cross and in many Catholic Churches volunteers have made their talents available using various techniques. Recently there was an international outcry when 3 stations were stolen from the Italian Chapel in Orkney which had been hand made by prisoners of war. Perhaps the most distinguished Stations in Scotland are those in terracotta by the sculptor Benno Schotz in St Charles, Glasgow, where he included not only the parish priest and the architect among the bystanders but also members of his own synagogue.

The Franciscans are still the Western Church's representatives in the "Holy Land" and they encourage those "doing the stations" today to pray for peace between Jews and Muslims there.