Welcome to The Repair Shop,
where cherished family heirlooms are brought back to life.
This is the workshop of dreams.
Home to furniture restorer Jay Blades.
Nowadays everybody spends a fortune on stuff
that once it's broken, they just bin it.
But everybody has something that means too much to be thrown away
and that's where we come in.
Working alongside Jay
will be some of the country's leading craftspeople.
Every piece has its own story.
It's amazing to think that some of my work
becomes part of that story.
I've always played with things,
I've always repaired things and I just love it.
It's a real pleasure in bringing people's pieces back to life again.
Each with their own unique set of skills...
I can't wait to get started.
..they will resurrect...
revive...and rejuvenate...
..treasured possessions
and irreplaceable pieces of family history.
Wow!
Bringing both the objects...
She's fantastic!
That's just taken me back 50 years...
..and the memories that they hold...
THEY GASP Oh, yes!
..back to life.
Oh, my God.
In The Repair Shop today, Steve and Kirsten collaborate
on a very fragile 19th century clock.
There we go. Can I let go?
OK. Are you sure? Yeah. OK.
Don't! THEY LAUGH
While expert George tackles
an antique typewriter with royal connections.
Where's the spell check button?
Ah! THEY LAUGH
You're 100 years too late for that.
First through The Repair Shop doors
is John Lofting, on a top secret mission.
Hello. Hi.
He's enlisting an expert who's very clever with leather,
Suzie Fletcher. Nice to meet you. What do you have here?
So this is my grandfather's World War II flying jacket.
OK. Which he did actually use in the war.
Really? Yeah. I believe it's an Irvin jacket
and that was designed specifically
for the Coastal Command, as part of the RAF. Right.
They don't all have the yellow hoods.
Oh, right. What is this?
If they were unfortunate enough to have to ditch in the sea
they could put this up and it was easily visible
from any of the search planes.
He was a navigator, air gunner in a bomber.
Coastal Command was the maritime arm of the RAF.
Their role was to patrol and defend the home coast from attack
and to spot down airmen and stricken ships in British waters.
During the Second World War,
the heroes of Coastal Command sank 366 German vessels.
But the cost was heavy.
Nearly 6,000 Coastal Command personnel
lost their lives in combat.
John's grandfather survived
and continued in the Air Force after the war.
I never met my grandfather.
Unfortunately, he died before I was born.
So it's my father's.
He was given it or inherited it.
It's pretty important to us because it's one of the few things
that my father still has of his.
What is it you would like me to do this?
Well, I actually smuggled it out of the house without my dad knowing.
How on earth did you manage that?
I did collude with his wife.
Why didn't you feel that you wanted to ask?
I just thought it would be a really nice surprise.
I mean, my dad doesn't talk about his dad very much.
I don't know a huge amount about my grandfather.
But I've always known about this.
I've always known about it, always known it was Grandad's and I just
thought that would be a really wonderful thing,
for my father to have something restored
that belonged to his father.
But also I think it's got historical significance as well.
You know, it was actually used in the war and I think it flew
missions and what it saw, so I think to bring it back to its former glory
would be truly amazing.
Most of the lining on all the seams has come away.
Oh, yes. Yeah.
I guess that's one of the more minor things,
if you start to look at some of the holes.
I mean, up in the shoulder here.
Oh, my. Yes, right. Yeah. I'm... Yeah.
I'm not sure how that happened.
My father has worn it, back in his late teens
and so did my uncle, in fact.
So I think that's maybe where some of the wear and tear has come from.
And you're clearly confident that he will be very happy
that I'm going to put this back together?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, as you can see, it needs some tender loving care.
I am going to cherish this while it's in my hands.
And I appreciate you bringing it in.
I'll leave it with you. Brilliant. Thanks. All right take care, John.
Thank you. Bye.
I'm feeling quite apprehensive that I've dropped it off,
giving it to someone else to take care of.
It's an important part of the family,
important item to the family.
My father means a lot to me and to be able to give...
do this for him...
means a lot to me too,
so I'm really, really looking forward to him seeing it
and him seeing the finished product.
Sorry.
Now John must work out how to lure his father to The Repair Shop,
while Suzie gets to work on his big surprise.
Just looking over the jacket.
There's an awful lot of hand sewing to do,
of all the leather-work that's come away
and I have the zips to replace. This hole in the shoulder here
is going to be a little tricky.
But we'll be able to get that all reinforced
while I'm working on it.
I'm sure I'll be imagining what this jacket has been through.
John's grandfather's jacket is falling apart at the seams.
Pretty much all of these strips of leather that are covering
the main seams that butts the two pieces of leather together
is going to have to be re-sewn. All the stitching is rotten.
It's very fragile.
I just need to sew every seam, of which there are many.
With an entire jacket to carefully re-stitch,
Suzie's calling on the help of an old and dependable friend.
You all right? Hello.
I did offer to get you an electric one.
This is... This is Pearl.
Nice to meet you, Pearl.
Pearl is a Singer sewing machine.
And there was an Elkie Brooks record, Pearl's A Singer,
so I call it Pearl. All right.
But the reason I like this hand-driven machine
is this has to be done one stitch at a time to match up
the original stitches. And if you had an electric sewing machine,
it probably would take up... It does its own stitching.
It would do its own stitching. And you can control.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there's nothing I can do? Well, you might want to turn handle.
Slowly. And go very, very slowly.
Ready?
Perfect. Like that?
Yeah. Keep going.
Cor blimey. This is going to take ages!
You're not going anywhere this afternoon.
I'm here for rest of me life! Yeah. Keep going.
You've got to do the whole jacket like this? The whole jacket.
Keep going.
Next into The Repair Shop, Jane Prechter from Maidenhead.
Hello. Hello.
She has a treasured possession in desperate need of some
very specialist attention.
What have we got here, then? It's a Meissen porcelain clock.
That is beautiful.
Kirsten, we've got one here for you.
Kirsten Ramsey to the rescue, with her years of experience
restoring ceramics from around the world.
This looks nice. It's very nice.
Can I take it out? Yes, please do.
Lovely. Ooh! Rattling.
Right.
Wow.
That's absolutely fabulous. It's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah.
So what's the story behind this, then?
My grandfather collected antiques. He had a good eye for it, I think.
My father wasn't interested in antiques but my mother was.
So when Grandpa died, he passed this on to my mother
who was his daughter-in-law.
She encouraged me to take an interest.
I remember her telling me it was the four seasons
that this spring with the garland of flowers,
summer has the sickle and the sheaf of corn.
Autumn has the wineglass and the vine.
And winter has a blanket and a little bowl of hot soup.
Oh, right, OK!
Or coals, or... Something warm.
Perhaps when we clean it, we'll find out. Yeah.
It's a broth. It's a broth.
I remember it working and being on Grandad's mantelpiece.
So what's wrong with it?
My friend came to visit me about eight years ago.
I was poorly and she came to help me and she took it off the mantelpiece
to dust, put it on a stool and then promptly knocked it over.
Wow.
Are you still friends? Yeah, we are.
Well, we've known each other a long time.
Are those bits lost, then? She Hoovered them up. Oh, no!
Wow. Goodness.
I mean, it's a lovely clock.
It's Meissen, it's turn of the century so it's...
I mean, they are beautifully made.
It is really good quality porcelain. OK.
That's nice. If Kirsten likes it, it must mean it's good.
It is very well made.
Very skilfully made. So much work, so much detail in it.
Absolutely. And I feel it does connect me to Grandpa and to Mum.
They both treasured it.
And the clock, is the clock...?
It used to ding every so often. Oh, really?
Well, we could ask Steve to have a look. Yeah, Steve's the man.
Steve? If you don't mind, come and have a look at this one.
I've been itching to come over.
Hi. Hello.
Right, let's have a look.
When was the last time it worked? About nine years ago.
Oh, right, OK. I reckon it hasn't been looked at by a clockmaker
in about...25, 30 years.
Yeah. And I can tell that by the...
the colour of the brass.
I don't remember it ever being seen by a clockmaker.
So, right! That would explain it, then.
So, Steve, what do you reckon, can we get this working?
Oh, yeah, we'll get it working. That would be great.
Team effort, then. It is. Absolutely. Cool.
So thank you for bringing it in.
Yep, thanks. Nice to meet you all.
Nice to meet you too.
Carefully!
THEY LAUGH
It's nice.
It's going to clean up beautifully. It's a quality piece, isn't it?
Absolutely, yeah.
I'm glad I've dropped the clock off. I'm feeling quite relieved
it didn't get more broken on the way here.
The clock is the link across the generations of my family
and it reminds me of my grandparents, it reminds me of times
in their house and it would be lovely to be able to pass that
on to my boys as well.
I'm just itching to get going.
It's going to it's going to come up so beautifully.
And your clock, you think you're quite confident?
Yeah, the clock is a very standard
but very good quality French movement.
And I've worked on hundreds of these.
They're all good quality. Right. OK.
So you need to get the clock out first
before Kirsten can work on the actual body. Yeah. OK.
So it sounds like you're both excited about this one.
Absolutely. And it's a team effort. Yeah, absolutely.
So can I leave you to it? You can. You sure?
Yeah. All right, thanks, Steve.
Meissen porcelain was developed in Germany in the early 18th century.
It was the first porcelain to be produced in Europe,
the Chinese having had a monopoly on the process up until then.
Renowned for its whimsical style and delicate rococo detail,
it has become extremely sought after by collectors.
So I'm just going to start taking it apart now.
Just pop the dial off.
The strike has completely seized up, which I'm very surprised at.
It might be just because it's years since it was used.
On the time side, it looks fairly seized up as well.
I'm going to have to take it fully apart
to actually find out what the problem is.
Hi, Steve.
Hi.
Just coming for the Meissen clock case. Yeah, take it away.
I'm terrified of it here. SHE LAUGHS
Absolutely terrified. OK.
Just the sort of thing that you'd swing around and knock.
Take it away!
Have you got it? Yeah, I've got it. Sure? Yeah, absolutely. Definitely.
All right. Thank you, Steve. All right.
Leather restorer Suzie is on a covert assignment
to restore a precious piece of family history.
A World War II bomber jacket that is succumbing to age.
The hole here is actually in the shoulder area.
It's a very significant repair
and I want to stabilise this whole area.
In order to do that,
I'm going to be trimming off the wool
that's on the inside of the jacket
and I'll then be gluing some aviator leather on the inside.
It has the wool still attached to it.
It's beautiful and soft
and the leather is a decent thickness.
So I'm going to shave all the wool off down to the skin.
I'm just going to take my time doing this
as I don't want to cut the leather itself.
After preparing the ribbed area, Suzie can attach the sheepskin patch
but the heavy-duty adhesive means she's only got one shot.
It's a case of that balance between taking your time,
but also you can't hang about while you're doing it.
So now that I flip the jacket over,
I'm making sure that those tears are joined together.
Where we've got these little flaky bits sticking up,
they'll actually cover over some of the tears, which is quite nice.
Already I can feel that new piece of leather has really stabilised
this whole section that was incredibly weak.
So I'm very pleased with how this has gone.
The years on combat duty
haven't just taken their toll on the leather.
The zip on this jacket is actually very badly damaged.
It's lost many of the teeth. It's not the original.
I can see it's been repaired in the past.
A zip on a jacket like this, it's so important that it works,
and it's easy to attach and do up,
particularly on those cold, wet days.
Things to bear in mind when you're putting a zip in
is making sure that when you've taken the zip apart,
you sew the right side on.
Otherwise you'll find out when you go to put
the side with the slider on you've got it inside out
which isn't going to work.
Machining went very well. Very happy with it.
So it just leaves me to test the zip out for the first time,
and hopefully I've got it right.
Nice.
As Suzie breathes new life into the aviator jacket,
more items are coming in to The Repair Shop.
Next, it's Lucy and Chris Smith from Exeter in Devon.
Here we are. Yes.
Hi, there.
They've brought in an historic family heirloom
with a regal connection.
Let's have a look. Or let you have a look.
Look at that. It's a typewriter, I can see.
It's an Underwood 5. Is it? Yes.
The Repair Shop has called on the expertise of
vintage typewriter restorer George Blackman.
It belonged to my grandfather who wrote these memoirs on it
of the Boer War and First World War and his time in The Army...
OK. ..and during his distinguished military career.
And the really interesting thing we think, is that he was
godson to Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria? Queen Victoria.
So, my great grandparents
and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were friends.
Oh, I mean... Just as you do! Yes!
As he was friends, within the memoirs,
he records the fact he was at Sandhurst, training to be an officer
with Winston Churchill. Well-connected, then. Yes.
And one of the most fascinating things that he records,
he was on attachment to the British embassy in Berlin
and he was there at that very point
Britain had declared war on Germany.
And that's also... The accounts are in there, in the memoirs,
written on the typewriter again.
So it's got a very interesting story behind it, this typewriter.
I always say, if only things like this could talk.
I know. The stories, well, the stories are here. Yes, they are.
But it would bring it to life even more, wouldn't it?
So it must mean quite a lot to you, then. It means a great deal to me.
I'm sort of very family-orientated.
So, although I only knew my grandfather for nine years,
my family are very important
and I want to pass it on to the next generation.
It's, you know, it's a family heirloom
that I want to keep in the family forever.
So this isn't working at the moment? No, no.
Probably never been used for 60, 70 years. Really?
Yes, I would say that's right. Yes.
What happens is they used to use an old type of oil years ago
and it congeals.
And it sucks in all the dirt from everywhere,
and it just seizes everything up, so we can't move it. Yeah, yeah.
All these keys here are all stuck.
Let's see if we can get some moving.
LUCY: A bit sticky. They are very sticky, yeah.
I've never worked on one with royal connections at all.
But it'd be a pleasure to rebuild it
with all the history that you've told me.
Well, excellent. Excellent.
It'd be great to have it in working order
so it can go back in pride of place.
Well, we'll certainly try to. Thank you very much, George.
Thank you for coming down. Thank you, will. Thank you, George.
Bye-bye. Thank you, bye-bye. Bye-bye.
I'm feeling very excited now I've dropped the typewriter off
because, with any luck, George will be able to restore it
and then it can be passed on to the next generation.
I'm sure it's more than a possibility.
George is going to do it, I know.
So, George, this is such a nice piece into the workshop. It is.
And it's the first item we've had that has a link to the royal family.
That's right, yeah. I've done several like this
but never known their history. Whereas this one, I do
and it's very interesting. Very interesting.
The main thing we've got to do, is the most important part,
is the carriage movement. It's not moving. We've got to sort that out.
And all the keys at the front,
which actually bring up and type on the paper... Yep.
..are just not working. Seized.
Seized up with years and years of neglect.
And then all these have got to come out.
Now, this is a big job. What! You've take them all out?
We're going to take them all out.
There's hundreds and hundreds of parts in this machine.
Possibly nearly a thousand. It looks like you've got
a lot of work to be getting on with. It's a lot of work.
George's first job is to dismantle the typewriter
so he can give its myriad parts a deep clean.
Normally, a machine of this age would be thrown away,
just scrapped all over the place. It's just a shame.
That's the scale off.
Now, we should be able to get it off.
Here it comes.
Waggle, waggle, waggle.
There we go.
But you can now see all the gunge all along here.
That's been there for a long, long time.
It's one of the worst I've ever seen, ha!
Very bad.
Steve and Kirsten have combined forces
to restore an ornate 19th century Meissen clock.
It's picked up a lot of dirt over the years
so I'm going to give it a really good clean.
Porcelain like this, when it comes to me,
it does tend to be quite, erm,
quite dirty normally, quite dusty.
I think people are quite intimidated
by cleaning things like this.
Going to use my steam cleaner, which is absolutely brilliant job.
Bit like washing a car. All the dirt kind of runs down.
Steve has his own clean-up operation on the go.
The clock mechanism hasn't worked for almost ten years
and its parts are in need of some TLC.
I've taken the whole movement apart now and there's
nothing actually broken.
What I have found is that it's just completely seized up with the oil
that has gone absolutely hard on all the pivots.
It's just like glue and so it's...
That's just the reason why the clock wasn't working.
I'll pop it in the clock cleaning fluid now
and leave it there for a little while, then I'm going to clean it
all up and polish it all.
This is a great, old-fashioned clock cleaning fluid that my grandfather
used to use most of his life.
Leave that to cook for a little while,
about half an hour, three-quarters of an hour.
Hopefully put the clock back together
and it's going to work all right.
Kirsten is ready to tackle the trickiest part of her repair -
rebuilding the missing porcelain parts.
I've got a couple of missing areas.
I've got this wheatsheaf here.
There's a finger and a toe and a few leaves and things
so I'm going to make up the missing areas.
I'm going to do a finger here on this cherub.
If you look at the original fingers,
they've got some rather sweet little fingernail details.
So I'm going to put that back on it as well.
So this is actually quite fiddly work.
Having said that, I quite enjoy it.
Fingers fixed, Kirsten moves on to the larger broken pieces.
So the biggest challenge on the Meissen clock is going to be
making up the missing wheatsheaf.
I haven't actually ever made a wheatsheaf before.
I've made all sorts of things -
flowers and bushes and leaves and feet and hands
but I've never made a wheatsheaf.
Fortunately there are quite a few sort of references
and I've got an idea of what it should be looking like.
I think my approach is going to be
to actually make up a sort of central column.
Then make the wheat ears...
..sort of around the outside of it.
I think making these individual ones and actually applying them
to the central core that's already on there seems to be the way to go.
Over on Steve's bench the now gleaming components can be
transformed back into a working timepiece.
I've cleaned it.
I've pared some of the wear. It's just all ready to put together.
First job is getting the mainsprings into the barrels.
While Steve puts the mechanism back together again,
Kirsten is painting her repairs to seamlessly blend
into the 19th century ceramic.
So I'm just doing the part of this that I really love, actually,
which is the painting.
It's just a real pleasure.
Looking at all the sort of colours that have been used when this
was actually manufactured you've got these really rather sort of
sweet little vignettes actually within
the ceramic case itself,
and of course you've got this
sort of extraordinary detail in the flowers and cherubs.
It's just lovely to sort of see it come back to life again.
Leather specialist Suzie is on a secret mission to restore
this World War II aviator's jacket,
colluding with the owner's son, John.
After hours of meticulous work, the end is in sight.
I'm now cleaning the leather and I'm being careful because in some areas
the surface is quite flaky and I don't want to pull off pieces
so I'm just gently doing it.
I'll let it dry and then I can go over it again.
I'll be conditioning it as well and then
cleaning it again with some saddle soap.
In working on this jacket I have such a deep appreciation
as to what conditions they were working in whilst...
..doing a very, very difficult and important job.
It's incredibly emotional.
Imagining a member of your family having done that.
And so I really hope that John and Graham
have a favourable reaction to the work that I've done to this
very important jacket.
John and his uncle Michael have arrived at The Repair Shop
where they have a surprise planned for John's father, Graham,
the owner of the jacket.
I've had to spin a bit of a web of deceit to get my dad here today,
ably assisted by my uncle here.
Erm, he thinks he's coming down for
the Small Visitor's Centre of the Year Award
with his wife, for a buffet lunch.
And he's going to be extremely surprised when he sees us, I think!
That's quite interesting, because you don't live very far from here.
THEY LAUGH
Hello. Hiya. How are you?
I'm absolutely fine, thank you. Good, good, good, good.
Hello. Hello there. How we doing? We're doing fine, thank you.
You are? I'm Graham. Graham.
How we doing, sir? John. How we doing, John? Mick. Mick.
Don't be shy, come in, come in. Thank you.
So, Graham, you don't know why you're here, do you?
I have no idea.
John, how you feeling? Pretty nervous.
Yeah? May be in a bit of trouble afterwards.
LAUGHTER
Erm, but, yeah - really excited as well. Really excited. Yeah, OK.
You ready for this? Yes. OK, yeah.
Wow.
Absolutely amazing. Terrific. It just looks stunning.
It does. Beautiful.
So, Graham, do you know why you're here now?
I've got a pretty good idea why I'm here now, yes.
So, is John in trouble now?
No more than usual! No more than usual.
Well, it's all down to Suzie, really.
This was a really wonderful job to work on.
And there wasn't a moment that I didn't enjoy it.
I haven't let it out of my sight.
And I'm not sure I want to let it go, actually!
SHE LAUGHS
It just looks amazing.
I just hope Dad's happy and Uncle Michael's happy. Yes, delighted.
Fantastic. It's a bit nostalgic, actually.
We haven't got many things left over from our father,
and that's one of them that sort of epitomises what...
..he was doing during the war and everything else,
and so it's living, it's there, and John, thank you.
You're welcome.
It's given me a chance to learn a bit more about my grandad,
because I didn't ever know him, so...
No. Which is, you know...
That's difficult for me that I didn't know him,
so this has brought me a little bit closer to him.
It's a lovely little bit of history, and we can now look after it.
Or John can, I suppose, yeah.
Is that what's going to happen with it now?
It's going to be handed down to John?
Yes, I think John's custodian, unless Michael has any...
No, no, no. I think, Graham, you should do the honours.
Lovely, thank you. Quite.
Come here, young man.
Ooh!
It feels amazing.
Brilliant. So, John, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Never thought I'd see the day where it'd be restored
to the level and the beauty that it was then,
and it makes me just humble and proud.
It's all been worth it.
The secrecy and the scheming.
And getting everyone together.
The jacket's just amazing, and I'm just so happy
that we've got it restored.
It's just a warm glow, that the family are together and they've
been brought together by such a simple piece of clothing.
If we look after the jacket, it will be that focal point
to reflect on those people that are no longer with us,
but with us in thought.
Susie's basking in the success of her finished repair,
but over on George's workbench, he's just getting started.
He's broken down the vintage Underwood typewriter
into its individual parts.
I've taken all these bars out, they're the type bars,
and they're the ones that actually print onto the paper.
But they were all seized up, so nothing could work.
60 years of non-use, it's clogged up completely. There's 42 of them.
I've got them all the way through, and you can see how bad they are.
Every part has to be oiled, and very fine oil,
and then, they will hopefully work.
Unfortunately, it is a laborious process,
but it's best if we do it by hand,
because if we use a buffing machine, it can damage the angle
of the type bar, and every one is different.
78-year-old George has been fixing typewriters since 1956,
when he started a six-year apprenticeship.
He's now a highly regarded specialist in his field.
I don't know how good the alignment of the typing is at the moment.
It is a worry that I haven't been able to test it first,
because normally I'd get an idea of what it's going to type like
on the paper, even if it's sluggish and everything else, you could see
the alignment, and I haven't been able to do it on this one,
because they just wouldn't move at all, they're just solid.
The Underwood No 5 was launched by the New York company in 1900.
It was billed as the first truly modern typewriter.
By 1920, two million had been sold.
At its peak, the company was producing one machine every minute.
This is the carriage, stripped down, and what we've got to do is
make sure it's clean, and so when it's put together,
it'll run along on the base of the machine,
and you'll get the correct spacing then, of letters.
Once the historic typewriter is stripped down,
George uses a spirit wash to loosen the years of dust and grime.
They're so brilliantly made, they should be preserved.
And so many have been thrown away, but this one,
although it's not been looked after, it's never been messed about with,
so it should go on indefinitely.
Meanwhile, Steve and Kirsten's collaboration on the
19th century clock has almost come to an end.
It's time for the mechanism to be reunited with its ceramic casing.
I'm dying to see it, actually, from the front. Wait, just wait.
Can we swap positions? Sure. And you can hold the movement.
If you can hold the weight of the movement... It wants to push out
at the bottom there, right? I've got it.
OK, and I'm going to...
That looks so much better.
I'm not pushing too hard? No, you don't have to push it hard. No, OK.
There we go. Can I let go?
OK. Are you sure? Yeah. OK.
THEY LAUGH
Really hoping Jane will be delighted with this.
Jane is back at the workshop to be reunited with the clock
that holds such treasured memories of her childhood.
The clock is a link between me and my mother and my grandfather,
so I'd like to have it repaired, because it would be nice
to have those memories again.
It would be wonderful to be able to see it working and hear it
as it was before.
Hello, Jane, how are you? I'm fine, thanks.
It's good to see you both again. Nice to see you, too.
You looking forward to this moment? I am.
We won't keep you waiting any longer.
Oh, wow.
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, this is amazing.
Oh, gosh, you can't even see where they were damaged.
Wow!
This is fabulous.
Its beautiful. It's so clean as well.
It's really bright, isn't it? It's looking absolutely amazing.
Polished up round the dial as well.
Yeah, it's absolutely gleaming, isn't it? So pretty.
Can I look at the back? Of course, it's yours.
Oh, yes. Oh, it's so clean as well.
And will it strike?
Are you ready? Yes.
CLOCK CHIMES
Oh, that's so pretty, isn't it?
Wow!
It's a long time since you've heard that.
No, I haven't heard that for a very long time.
Takes me back to Grandpa's house, and hearing it chiming
in the sitting room. That is so gorgeous.
Thank you both so much.
You're really, really welcome, actually. It's been a nice project.
I'm very impressed. I really thought it was going to end up in the bin,
which is where my friend thinks it probably should have gone.
Julia, you know who you are.
She's going to be able to see it. She will, yeah,
if she comes to visit, but she won't be allowed to touch it. No!
Right, well, I'll wrap it up safely for you.
Or WE'LL wrap it up safely... I'LL wrap it up. You wrap it up!
Kirsten will wrap it up very safely.
You can take it home with you... Wonderful.
..and put it somewhere... Put it somewhere very safe.
Yeah, very safe indeed. Thank you very much, both of you.
Thanks. You're very, very welcome. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks.
I feel ecstatic. I can't believe how beautiful it looks.
I can't believe how dainty the repair is.
You could barely see where it was ever broken.
It's so bright and beautiful.
I feel it's nice to have something to pass down that has a link
with my family over the generations.
After hours of meticulous cleaning,
George is now rebuilding the antique Underwood typewriter.
I'm just going to put the carriage on it for the first time,
and we're hoping we'll get a good result,
cos I couldn't type on it at all before.
We wiggle it on.
It'll gradually go.
There we go.
It's looking great.
Yeah, I'm very pleased with it.
So is this the final stage?
This is the last screw to put in of about 50.
All different ones. Yeah.
It looks a lovely piece of engineering. It is.
And are you confident it's going to work?
I'm hopeful. It's not worked for 60 years, I know that.
You know, it's years and years since I used a typewriter.
Course it is, yeah.
But they're highly fashionable now.
Do you want to have a go? Go on, then. Yeah.
We're just hoping the impression is going to be good.
You've got to give it a little bit of welly.
It's a really nice feeling when you hit the key. Yeah, it is.
Very different to a computer.
Where's the spell check button? Ah!
You're 100 years too late for that!
Fantastic. Yeah.
I think you've done an amazing job, George. Thank you.
And it's a lovely thing to see.
It's taken George's expert touch to breathe new life
into the vintage Underwood. It's now as good as new,
when it recorded historical memoirs with exclusive royal connections.
150 miles away in Exeter,
owner Lucy is waiting to be reunited with the typewriter,
along with husband Chris her sister Camilla,
and great-niece Lily.
I'm really excited, I'm sure Camilla is as well,
to see the restored item,
and it can be passed down through the generations.
It's really important to Lucy, this typewriter,
because it's a link back. in her family history,
which is a tangible link,
something that she can actually reach out and touch.
It's like Christmas.
This is a present from the past.
I'm shaking. Are you? Yeah.
Have you got it? Yeah.
Look at that!
Look how sparkling it is.
It's like brand-new. That's incredible.
Look at that, look how... What a job he's done.
Camilla, shall we put some paper in it?
Is it working?
Doesn't it look brand-new? I know! It's incredible!
I'm so thrilled. Thrilling, isn't it? Yeah. Really thrilling.
To actually think that my grandparents...
Used this typewriter. ..used that typewriter,
and their hands were on here.
The typewriter is a way of connecting to her grandfather,
because it's a big piece of his life.
I think if somebody has kept something and passed it down
to you, it's your obligation to pass it on to the next generation,
and you're just sort of custodian of it for a few years.
Would you like to have a go? Look, look, very clever!
Isn't that lovely? Press the keys.
Shall we do it together? Do it together.
I'm going to pass it on to my son, who lives in Australia, Ben,
and the extraordinary thing was that my grandfather was
very well travelled, but the one place that he regretted
that he didn't get to was Australia.
So maybe the typewriter will eventually get there,
even if he didn't.
Join us next time, as the team gets to grips...
There's something actually really satisfying about this.
..with more precious pieces in need of restoration...
It's better than it was before! ..in The Repair Shop.