Welcome to The Repair Shop, where cherished family heirlooms
are brought back to life.
Anything can happen, this is the workshop of dreams.
Home to furniture restorer Jay Blades.
Nowadays things are not built to last,
so we've become part of this throwaway culture.
It's all about preserving and restoring.
We bring the old back to new.
Working alongside Jay will be some of the country's leading craftspeople.
I like making things with my hands.
I love to see how things work and I want to know how things work.
Whether it's a Rembrandt, or somebody's family piece,
every painting deserves the same.
Each bringing their own unique set of skills.
You're about to witness some magic.
They will resurrect,
revive...
Oh, yes.
..and rejuvenate treasured possessions.
And irreplaceable pieces of family history.
Oh, my goodness me, it looks like it's new.
Bringing both the objects...
Oh!
Oh, oh, oh, wow!
..and the memories that they hold
back to life.
Oh, thank you.
If you go down to The Repair Shop today, you may be in for a surprise.
Although it's no picnic for teddy bear specialists Julie and Amanda.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! What have you done?
Seriously? What have you done to it?
You've taken everything out of George.
And Steve has to steer an old banger back onto the road.
So that hasn't worked either.
I'm going to try turning that down in the lathe.
BELL RINGS
Do you hear that?
- Hello. Are you all right? - Good morning, gents. - Good morning.
But first Jay, and Dom are poised with bells on
for latest arrival, Ian Elliott.
- What is it? - What I have brought for your delight
is an old museum sign.
I come from a little fishing village in Cornwall called Polperro,
which is the home of a smuggling and fishing museum.
This sign we think dates back maybe 60, 70 years to when the
museum first came into being.
It was recently discovered in an antique shop in Wales by a village resident.
- In Wales, all the way up...? - In Wales, exactly, bizarre!
We've used some of our community funding in our little village
to bring it back to where it belongs.
As you can see, it's a little bit tired,
it needs a bit of tender loving care.
It's a bit of living history and we would love you to work your magic
and it go back to use outside our beautiful harbour-side museum.
It looks good. It's a beautiful thing.
- This would have all been hand-painted. - Yes, it was.
What's the story behind the bells, then? Why has it got bells?
The man who created the museum many decades ago,
he used to have this sign standing on a metal pole.
Luckily, in the museum itself, we have a postcard, which I've brought with me.
If you look at that postcard,
you can see that's the original museum owner.
The sign is on a metal pole that's got a castor at the bottom of it.
And he used to wheel it around the harbour making the bells jingle,
- a mobile billboard in effect. - That's going to be a good one.
- It's going to look great. - It needs a little bit of TLC, but what would you like us to do?
In essence, we want you to future proof it and allow it to
provide decades' more service to our little village community.
- Brilliant, thanks a lot. - Cheers, guys. - Nice to meet you.
Thanks, guys. Thank you.
We were very lucky that one of our residents stumbled across the sign,
so I think there's great excitement in our community and we're
looking forward to seeing what the boys can work with their magic.
- This one's going to be a busy one, eh? - It's a big one. - Yeah.
Caught it just in time, the sea air's not been very kind to it.
Some of the small details, these rings are about to break through.
We do need to get the bells off because in this picture they
- look quite shiny. - They do. - They look like brass, or something. - Yeah.
- They're definitely shinier than this, anyway. - Definitely.
The best plan of attack for this particular sign is going to be,
we just need to strip it down, get all the individual components
off, get all the old, flaky, rusty paint off.
This is a job that will test all of Dom's restoration skills - from
metalwork to sign writing.
I'm just tracing over the remains of the letters,
trying to save as much information as we can from the existing sign
Some of the letters are almost illegible now,
so much paint and detail has gone.
I'm just picking out the elements that I can that are still there.
I can tell on closer inspection that the sign
has all been painted by hand originally.
Unfortunately, the paint on this part of the sign is
so far gone we're going to have to save what we can with the
tracing and just sand it off and start again.
It's a shame but it's essential.
The Repair Shop team rescue all manner of objects from the ravages
of time, from reviving pieces of history for whole communities,
to repairing tiny yet treasured reminders of family days gone by.
- Please to meet you. - Likewise. - I'm Liam. - I'm Jay. What have you got?
I've got a little clockwork car.
- A clockwork car? - Yeah.
Don't even talk no more, you've got to go and see Steve,
- he's the man for clockwork. - Cool, thanks very much. Cheers. - Steve.
Hi, Liam.
Next to arrive with a childhood treasure in need of
a full service is Liam Bruce.
- It's missing the key. - Right.
It's missing the cable which connects the car to the little steering wheel.
Tell me about the history of this?
I got it off a neighbour when I was about eight years old.
I believe her brother brought it back when
he was serving in the forces in Germany.
- Right, OK. - That's all I know about it.
This was the first sort of remote control car but not that remote.
- Not that remote. - This is obviously where the cable went in.
Yeah, I think you can see it on the box.
Here you've got the three steel wheels.
- You've got a rubber wheel, that's the drive wheel. - OK.
- And then the steering wheel. - Yeah.
Have you tried winding it up at all?
- No, I've never wanted to do it just in case... - It all goes whizz-bang?
Yeah, and bits all over the place.
I've got a hopeful feeling that the clockwork part of it might be all right.
Just got to find a key and then we've got to find some way of
making a flexible cord that goes down to that so you can steer it.
It would be amazing to see it doing what it's supposed to do.
- OK, leave it with us and fingers crossed. - OK, lovely.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
It would be fantastic to have it working again to show my children.
I'm really excited to come back and hopefully see it running.
It'll be the first time I've ever seen it run, anyway.
Now I have to find a key for it.
That's a perfect fit.
Right, let's see if it works.
That's working really well.
Getting the car going is just the first job.
Steve also needs to get it to steer.
What I'm going to do is make up a cable that will go through this hole
here and when that's turned that's going to turn this wheel here.
So next for Steve, find out what cable options
The Repair Shop has to offer.
Don't be looking in Kirsten's stuff now, she's got all ceramic stuff.
You must have something, Steve.
I've got this net curtain wire and what I'm going to do is strip the
plastic from that and make up the two ends for that.
With his improvised steering solution,
Steve's on a home straight but when it comes to the decades old
miniature steering wheel he may be back to the starting line.
Under an eyeglass I can see that it's made out of a zinc-based alloy
and it's absolutely cracking up all over the place.
It's crazed all over
and I think really this
is not going to work.
Undergoing his own MOT,
Dom has stripped down the smugglers museum sign from the Cornish fishing village.
To help get it back up to scratch,
he's reeling in some extra Repair Shop expertise.
- Steve, do you have a minute? - Yeah. - I just wanted to talk to you about the bells, really.
- Hoping you can help us, if that's all right. - Yeah.
There's a few some small, little bits.
This one, the top of it's torn through,
you can see the damage there.
- It's all twisted around. - It's actually snapped.
I'm hoping you can rebraze the brass.
- Are we cleaning the whole lot? - I'd love to be able to clean them.
In the original postcard we had, they were shiny.
- Have you got a special potion for that? - I have, yeah.
- A clock-cleaning potion. - Brilliant.
- See you in a moment. - Thanks, Steve.
While Steve works on the bells, Jay's going to provide the whistles.
In this case, researching how to replace two flamboyant
tassels that used to hang from the sign.
- Where's the letters gone? - Gone. They've gone.
- Unfortunately we had to sand it all off. - You got rid of the letters?
- We did. We had to. - How are you going to know where to put the letters on?
This is our reference to putting it back on.
How many coats of this have you got to do?
This is the first coat, it'll have another coat just on the white.
It'll look really good.
I've been searching for tassels and what I've found is I'll probably be able to make my own.
- Really? - Those ones in the picture they looked about that big.
- I'm going to give it a go. - In the red and yellow?
Red and yellow, it's got to be done, hasn't it?
- Anyway, Jay, I've got to get on, paint's going to dry. - Yeah, yeah.
- Let me get on with the tassels. - Thank you.
It's all about the tassels.
I've never made a tassel before in my entire life.
There's a first time for everything.
I've looked online to figure this out.
A little nine-year-old has taught me how to make a tassel.
So who said an old dog can't be taught new tricks?
I'm going to go on with a chinagraph pencil
and redraw in any little bits that aren't quite there.
I just want it to be as accurate as it can be to what it used to be.
The trick is to keep on weaving to give the tassels some volume
and I've already got 70 metres on here, 70 metres on there.
140 altogether and hopefully that will give me the body.
The paints I'm using for this are specific sign writing paints.
They're thick paints. We've only really got one chance at this.
Once it's on, it's on.
The main focus in here is going to be areas like this where the
thin parts at the very end of the twirls,
where the corrosion and rust has eaten through.
We'll just be replacing that metal and making it solid again.
- Hello. - Hello, there. - How are you? - Very good, thank you.
Next to drop by the workshop is George,
along with concerned owner, Sally Aspinall.
George has seen better days so it's up to The Repair Shop emergency
bear care team, Julie and Amanda, to give him a new lease of life.
- Hello, George. - George is my teddy. - Right.
- I'm the youngest of six daughters. - Right.
He's basically being passed down and I'm the last in the line.
One day, I'd like to pass him on.
He's such a super thing.
He's always been there. He's always there.
- You just want him to be there some more, then? - Yes, that's right.
- Do you know anything about him, sort of history wise? - Not really.
My eldest sister was born in 1941.
OK, so your date wise, around 1940s, is absolutely right.
- He's Irish. - Irish? - Oh!
- He was made in Ireland. - How do you know that? - I didn't know that.
- Ah. - Cos we're the experts.
That's true. You know about teddy bears.
The significant thing that we kind of see, if you like,
the ears are very high on the corner of the head here, very flat.
And the more triangular-shaped head is another thing that's very
significant for the Irish teddy bear.
I'm a bit surprised.
During the war, because we couldn't trade with Germany, who made
an awful lot of teddy bears, a lot of Irish teddies came over to
- the UK. - Which would explain it, OK.
He's got no pads on his feet. I tried as a child to repair his paws.
- You stitched this up? - Yeah, terrible, my stitching.
You can see remnants of what was originally there.
We will match as best we can there.
The fact that you've turned his paws over,
you have actually saved all the fabric.
- That's good. - That's really good.
He is quite bare in places but that adds to the attraction of him.
- You like him. - He's been played with.
I remember when I was younger that he had, not a squeak,
- but he had a growl. I remember it working. - Right.
- Now it doesn't work. - What did the growl sound like?
He's quite deep-sounding, he's not like a modern-day squeak.
It was deep, like a "rrrrrrr".
- Like that, yeah. - That was lovely.
I would like him to have his growl back and eye.
Basically rectify some of the work that I did when I was younger!
Oh, bless you.
If you leave it with us, we'll get him growling again and looking
back to how he should be looking.
- Do look after him, won't you? - Of course we will. - That's lovely, thank you so much. - Thank you.
It's a pleasure to do him for you.
I look forward to seeing him when he's done. Thanks very much.
- Bye, then. - Bye.
I'm feeling apprehensive already,
very much, leaving him in there, but to have him repaired would be
absolute fantastic, to bring him back to life and particularly for
him to get his growl back, which I've missed over the years.
This is one of the kinds of repairs and restorations that we get
very excited about.
He's obviously very valuable to his owners and very precious.
- Definitely. - We need to stabilise what's going wrong with him already.
- Yeah. - And make sure it doesn't deteriorate any further.
- OK, we need to get this over to your bench, then. - Yeah.
I'll get George, not this.
- George. - George, the Irish teddy bear.
There we go. All right?
Gently ease the body open.
OK, then I'm going to gently remove...
I think I'm going to need some pliers. It's quite tight in there.
We can see now he's got wood wool in his tummy.
This filling called wood wool is very often what people think
is straw and they say, "I've got a straw-filled teddy bear."
They can hear it crunching under their fingers when they
squeeze it but it is actually wood fibre.
Sorry, this is just taking a little longer because George doesn't
want to give up his growler.
This might get a bit gruesome, actually.
There you go.
That explains why it's not working.
You can see that it's collapsed in there.
Inside the centre's a reed.
The weight should move up and down, freely inside this cardboard
tube as you turn it and, obviously, it doesn't any more.
While George starts his treatment, the smugglers museum sign is
almost ready to be discharged home to Polperro in Cornwall.
Now the next step of the process is to just attach all the bells.
I heard the bells.
They look amazing. Brilliant.
They're all lacquered so it should protect them from the weather.
That's really good.
OK.
BELLS RING
Are you having a party without me?
Yeah.
- Oh, the missing piece. - I know I'm tall, but, come on, don't take the mickey.
- How can I get up there? - Hang on, wait. - Have you got a ladder?
No, no, no, no.
- We have the technology, bear with me. - Here we go.
It might take a couple of days, lads.
It might take a couple of days. Keep it still.
I must say this is the piece de la resistance.
- Look at it. - It's got a bit more presence than when it arrived.
If that doesn't draw your attention, I don't think anything will.
You can even do that and keep the wheels where it is.
- Was that intentional? - Yeah.
OK.
When the tour bus goes past...
Look, look, keep on looking.
For the slow readers, yeah? Is that what that's for?
Now back to its eye and ear catching best,
the sign is ready to be returned to Ian and back into service on
the narrow streets of Polperro.
There's great excitement back in Polperro.
I think it's going to be intriguing to see whether the team have managed
to work some magic on what was a pretty dilapidated, old piece of ironwork.
- Good to see you. - Nice to see you again. - Nice to see you again. - How are you doing?
- Morning, my friend. How are you? - I'm very good, sir.
- I'm really intrigued. I'm itching. - I'll go and get something for you.
Thank you very much, indeed.
I think there will be a queue of people awaiting my return tonight.
I can hear it, I can hear it before I see it.
Oh, my lord.
Here we go.
How cool is that?!
- It'd get attention now, wouldn't it? - Oh, my God. I'm loving it large.
I'm loving it large.
- Hey. - How's that?
I'll give it a little bit of a test run, just up there and back down.
Let me have a go so you can see it. There you go.
CHUCKLES
Brilliant! Brilliant.
Absolutely fantastic.
- Are you happy? - I'm euphoric.
- That's better than I could have dreamt of. - Excellent.
That is going to be something really quite special.
- That will now serve many decades to come. - Yeah.
It's eye-catching, it appeals to all the sights and senses,
it's fantastic.
There is a warm welcome and a cold beer awaits you all in the
most picturesque fishing village in Cornwall.
I like to hear that.
We've got to shake on that, it's a deal. I'm there!
You've got to get in there quick.
Honestly, that's brilliant. It's nice, glossy, clean, shiny.
The Cornish sunshine will glint off that.
Brilliant.
During the summer months it will be coming out and about,
it'll be wheeled around our harbour.
We'll have a succession of hunky, young men who will be chosen to wheel it around
and it'll bring a smile to people's faces, I'm sure.
- Good one, eh? - Yeah. Free beer. - Tell me about it.
We've got another job to do, now. Let's crack on.
Back inside, George, the much-loved Irish teddy bear, is one step
closer to getting his eye, growl and paws back.
George's owner had turned the end of his hand over because his paw
pad had deteriorated
and so to stop his stuffing coming out,
she kind of turned the end of the paw.
So now we can see the length of his arm
and it's quite nice because you can see the shape, as well.
These bears had quite a point and that is all still complete,
which is really good from our point of view.
- Look at that, it's all there. - Perfect.
I'm stitching the new paw pads into position.
In a moment, I'll be able to turn this one inside out and then I'll be
stuffing the leg.
Then we've just got the other arm and the other leg to do the same
and we'll be able to fasten them back onto the body.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! What have you done?
Seriously, I thought you were just fixing the arms and...
No, seriously. What have you done to him?
- You've taken everything out of George. - Yeah, poor old George.
We decided the best option for George would be to actually
set new paw pads in like when they were first, when he was first made.
- OK. - We can't do that unless we can get inside and turn the pieces
inside out.
I'm with you because you're going to stitch it from the inside?
Yes, that's why he's looking a bit worse for wear at the moment.
What about his noise inside?
She's quite adamant that what she wants him to growl again.
- OK, so this is the one that we removed. - It doesn't make a noise.
It doesn't make any noise and there is not a lot we can do with that.
So this is the replica one that we're going to put in instead.
BLEATING
- CHUCKLES - Stop it.
- That sounds like a sheep. - Yeah, a lot of people say that.
It's the noise that a baby bear makes when he's calling his mummy.
- Oh, is it? - Yeah.
- Oh, now see, it is going to be muffled, isn't it? - Yes.
Because you're going to have all the wadding, the stuffing around him.
You guys know what you're doing. I'll just leave you alone.
I might have to take this. I'll borrow that, actually.
- We know where it's gone. - Thank you. - Bye. - Bye. - Bye.
Steve is back at work on the antique remote-control car.
He still has to solve the broken steering wheel issue before
its owner, Liam, returns to pick up his precious childhood toy.
I've found a pocket watch button.
What I'm going to do is add it to the other side
and use a bit of brute force.
So that hasn't worked, either.
I'm going to try turning that down in the lathe,
see if I can make that fit.
He's not ready to give up just yet.
- Hello, Liam. - Hi, Steve. How are you? - Good, thank you.
I'll just get your car for you.
Right, the good news is I've found a key and...
- ..it winds up beautifully. - Excellent.
And it works.
So if I just turn that on.
Superb.
It's actually working.
- The bad news... - OK. - ..this unit here.
- The steering wheel is a zinc-based alloy. - OK.
- It's gone rotten, basically. It's gone very crystallised. - All right.
- It's cracked all over. - OK. - There's no way I can repair that. - OK.
So instead what I've done, I've made a unit that you can use
- for steering the car. - OK.
You pop that onto the top there
and then twiddle the top of that
and what it does is
turn the wheel one way or the other.
It works a treat, doesn't it?
Turn it on.
- There we go. - Excellent.
That's fantastic.
- I'm very pleased. - Thank you.
Plus I didn't have to take the car apart.
- That's even better, isn't it? - Yeah, it is, yeah. - It just wound up and went? - Yeah.
Working on this car, it reminds me of a car that I had when I was
a very tiny child that was very, very similar.
I can remember spending hours around the parquet floor with the car.
- There's the key. Don't lose the key. - Definitely not. I'll guard that.
- The cable. - Thank you very much.
- There we go. - That's brilliant. - Thanks for bringing it along.
- Thank you very much for hard work. - You're very welcome. - Thank you.
What Steve's done with the car has blown my mind, really.
I've never seen it working before.
It brings back a lot of childhood memories for me and I'll be
able to pass that on to my children and pass the car on to my
children, as well. I'm really over the moon with it, fantastic.
Meanwhile, the last few missing pieces of treasured
Irish teddy George are being stitched into place.
- Oh, blimey. This is the precious moment, isn't it? - Yeah.
- You've just put a needle through his head. - Yeah, delicate surgery going on here. - He can see again.
He will be able to in just a moment, yeah.
- Have you taken him down the gym, or something? - Yeah. - Wow!
He's got abs.
He is really quite fit.
He's unbelievably toned up.
He is feeling...
- He feels good, doesn't it? - Oh, George, well done, son.
OK. What's next on here?
Right, so Julie's going to give him a really nice clean
and pamper session.
- He's got his eyes back. - Yeah. - He's been down to the gym. - Yeah.
- Now he's going to get a spruce over. A little spa. - Yeah.
- I'll leave you alone with George, then. - See you later.
What we have to be careful of,
we don't suck the eyes up into the Hoover. That wouldn't be good.
- I've got you a nice bowl of bubbles. - Oh, lovely.
- There's no liquid in there, it's just bubbles. - OK.
If you need me to foam up some more, just say.
I probably won't because he's not got a lot of fur, bless him.
We have to treat this as a vintage fabric and try and prevent it
from disintegrating any further.
We use mild soap suds, not a strong detergent.
We massage gently into the fur.
- I have your rinsing flannel there. - Thank you very much.
- There you go. - Thank you.
After George enjoys some well earned pampering from Julie and Amanda,
he ready to be reunited with his owner, Sally,
and to be passed on to future generations.
George means everything to me.
I've had him since I was a baby and he has come down the family line.
We've been missing George very much since he's been away.
I'm feeling really excited but I'm also really
a bit nervous because I'm not sure what he's going to look like.
- Hello, Sally. - Hi. - How are you doing? - I'm good, thank you.
- Are you all right? - Yes, thank you. - So you've come along for Irish George, is that right?
- Indeed I have, yes. - If you hold on a minute, I'll just get him for you.
With the teddy care team away on urgent bear business,
Jay's on hand to chaperone the reunion.
- You're looking after him very carefully, I can see. - Very carefully.
- So are you ready to see this? - I'm quite nervous.
- Right? - OK. - Here we go.
Oh! Oh, wow.
My gosh. He looks fantastic.
- Doesn't he? - Yeah, he does.
He looks so good and now I remember as a child these pads.
- The pads. - The pads.
GEORGE "GROWLS"
- That's it. - That's the one, yeah?
That's it.
Oh, that's amazing.
Because it's not a high-pitched squeak, it's a lower one.
I'm really surprised.
Quite shocked in a way that they've brought him back
in just such good condition. Wow!
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it and so will the family. Thank you.
Oh, to hear his growl again was fantastic, it was really good.
I could remember how it used to sound and the experts have got it
absolutely right.
He sounds the same as he did.
It's almost like he's talking to us again now.
I definitely feel I've got George back, definitely.
Join us next time as more treasured possessions are revived
and their precious memories restored in The Repair Shop.