It was the strangest bubble my daughter had ever blown.

As she blew into one end of the pipe, a bubble of brightly-coloured molten glass at the other end grew larger and larger.

We were in the Hot Glass Studio at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, where glassmakers were demonstrating their skills in front of blazing hot furnaces, and Gabrielle had been invited down to the front of the audience area to have a go herself.

It was a typical hands-on moment at a complex which offers plenty to amuse youngsters as well as their elders.

It was the first time I had ever been to Sunderland.

I suppose there was never really a strong reason to go there - until the glass centre opened a few years ago. Situated in an impressive new building on the banks of the River Wear, it tells you all you ever wanted to know about a substance that is both of huge functional importance and also great beauty.

But why Sunderland?

We were given the answer to this question as soon as we had entered the building.

A series of specially commissioned stained glass panels explained the area's long association with glassmaking.

It all dates back to the seventh century, when stained glass was made there for the first time in Britain for a new monastery, and it carried on through the industrial revolution and beyond to the present date.

The next part of the tour was ready-made for children. The highly interactive Kaleidoscope Gallery told the story of how glass is used in everyday life, including some quite unexpected ways.

There was some bullet-proof glass, shattered but not defeated by a bullet.

There was a small hall of mirrors, straight out of a fairground booth, distorting our body images in time-honoured hilarious fashion.

We could split light with prisms, study bugs with microscopes and magnifying glasses, and send colours along fibre optic cables.

We also had a look round the inside of a human body, courtesy of a laparoscopy. Fascinating, though I could have done without the shot of a stomach's interior as food came squelching in.

The tour then took us along an overhead walkway through the Glass Factory, where on weekdays you can get a bird's eye view of glassmaking and ceramic students from the University of Sunderland at work, to the Hot Glass Studio, which operates seven days a week.

Then it was on to the Glass Shop, which has one of the most extensive ranges of studio glassware in the country, and finally to a gallery which was then showing some innovative works by one of the world's most celebrated glass artists, William Morris. The gallery is now showing Playing With Fire, a display of works by the university students.

Evening Press reader offer: Two adults can obtain admission to the National Glass Centre for the price of one (£5). Just take along a copy of this article from the Evening Press of June 19. Offer valid until the end of June.

Updated: 09:03 Saturday, June 19, 2004