Grandfather's stained glass skills go viral on TikTok

A grandfather has become a viral TikTok star after his daughter shared videos of him crafting stained glass.

By day, Roland Berry, 73, from Cheltenham, works as a heavy goods driver, but he has spent decades pursing his passion of creating works of art from glass.

Having learned the art form in his mid-20s after befriending a glass restorer at Gloucester Cathedral, the father-of-six and grandfather-of-five now wants to encourage others to take it up to save it from "dying out".

His daughter Cicely, 29, began to upload her father's work to social media where it has proved a big hit, with millions of people now having seen the videos.

In 2022, Mr Berry created a design for his daughter's wedding which captured the attention of an online blog and led Cicely to start uploading videos to TikTok.

That decision led to Mr Berry receiving commissions from across the world and starting sell-out courses to share his craft.

"Stained glass is a dying art, it's literally on the endangered list with Heritage Crafts," he said.

"It's a bit of a crusade on my part, trying to get people into it and my life's aim would be to stop it from being an endangered craft."

Cicely shared a first video to TikTok in early 2023 which received about half-a-million views.

But the most-viewed video to date, posted in December, has more than nine million views and shows Mr Berry welcoming his first student for a private class.

"I called dad and said 'don't be alarmed but you might be getting more emails than normal'," Cicely said.

"It's really surreal because social media is a bit of a new concept for dad, he doesn't really use it himself, so to see it go up by like hundreds, thousands of people a minute is really mind-blowing."

The videos show him setting up his workshop for the day, hosting classes or showing his online audience how he carefully cuts glass on a wooden board.

"I knew nothing about it at first… it's been life-changing in a very good way," Mr Berry said.

"It's close to being totally overwhelming to be honest but the comments I'm getting are lovely and very humbling."

As a result of Mr Berry's online fame, he is now receiving global interest in his work.

"I've got three commissions on the go at the moment, one is in California, one is in Detroit, one is in Poole," he said.

"They're coming in from all over the place."

But the biggest reward is seeing people, particularly the younger generation, taking an interest in the art form, he said.

"I'm very flattered when someone enrols [in a class].

"I would love to pass it all on, all I've learned," added Mr Berry.

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