91Èȱ¬

Today in the Repair Shop, Jay Blades and the team bring three treasured family heirlooms, and the memories they hold, back to life.

Music box maestro Stephen Kember is on hand to welcome an unusual item into the barn - a wooden bench from Switzerland, with two carved bears proudly standing sentinel on either side of a seat that plays a tune when sat upon. This much-loved bench has been in owner Gill Hawkins’s family since 1950, when her parents brought it back from a holiday in the Alps, and has kept several generations of her family entertained ever since. But the bench no longer plays a tune, and the bears themselves are faded, battered and looking their age. While Stephen tackles the musical mechanism, furniture restorer Will Kirk takes on the challenge of reviving the woodwork – starting with a bit of bear dentistry!

Master saddlemaker Suzie Fletcher is called upon to repair of a pair of military mementoes owned by a remarkable soldier who served in both World Wars. Chris Adams has brought the items to the repair shop - a helmet that saw action in WWI, and a set of leather spurs dating from WWII. The helmet and spurs belonged to Chris’s grandfather, who served his country with distinction, and who recorded his experiences in an extraordinary hand-written diary. Jay and Suzie are left almost lost for words, as Chris reads out the entry that records how the helmet saved his grandfather’s life at Gallipoli. With the weight of history heavy on her shoulder, Suzie feels a great responsibility to breathe new life back into these precious items.

Mechanical maestro Steve Fletcher is tasked with the restoration of an old Victorian kaleidoscope belonging to 91-year-old Francis Rutter. The precious toy kept a nine-year-old Francis occupied and amused through a nasty childhood illness and is now destined to be passed down the generations to Francis’s six-month-old great-grandson Zach – but only if Steve can restore it to its former splendour.

And ceramics conservator Kirsten Ramsay carries out an immaculate restoration on a pair of Royal Crown Derby peacocks.