The Repair Shop (2017–…): Season 7, Episode 10 - Episode #7.10 - full transcript

Welcome to the Repair Shop, where
precious but faded treasures...
This is bad!

I don't think I've ever seen a chair
quite so broken as this.

..are restored to their former
glory. That's lovely! Isn't it?

That's lovely, isn't it?
Furniture restorer Jay Blades...

Bringing history back to life is
what makes the Repair Shop

so special. ..and a dream team
of expert craftspeople... Amazing!

It's a bit like brain surgery!

..come together to
work their magic. Yahoo!

When you look at something that
looks so hopeless like this,

it makes me even more determined
to get it back. That's teamwork.

Employing heritage craft skills
passed down the generations...



It is a privilege to be able to do
something for somebody that

means so much to them. ..preserving
irreplaceable heirlooms...

To bring those pieces back to life
is just the most wonderful

thing and I'd like to do it forever.
..the team will restore the items...

Whoa! ..the memories...
I'm so happy to see it!

..and unlock
the stories that they hold.

That's made it all worthwhile.

In the Repair Shop today...
Three, four...

..it's a numbers game for Brenton
and Sara...

I'm not remotely mathematical.
It's coloured pencil.

..as they strive to put the sparkle
back into a 1950s wedding tiara.

Specified by Sara these
have got to be 44mm long,

so that's what they're going to be.

And Steve is in his element...
Absolutely fantastic.



It's a nice job.
..coaxing out the hidden charms
of a worn-out wedding present.

The tick of a clock
is like the heartbeat of the clock

and the strike of the clock
is like the character of the clock.

But first,
a captured memory from a bygone era.

Owner Gwyn Higginson has
travelled from Leek,

hoping art restorer
Lucia Scalisi can revive it.

Hello. Hello. How are you doing?
Very well, thank you.

Hello, Gwyn. I'm Lucia.

Oh, hello, Lucia. So that must mean
that you've got a painting for us.

I have got a painting for you.

So that is a really
powerful painting.

This is my father's painting. He
painted mining scenes from memory.

What was your father's name?
Norman. Norman Phillips.

He was born in Wales... OK. ..in
1920. At the age of four... Yes.

..the family moved to Yorkshire
and he went down the mines,

following his elder brothers.

What age was he when he went
down the mine, then? 14.

He started at 14? Yes.
Working in the mines? Yeah. OK.

It's a different world. What's
going on in this painting, then?

This is the shot lighter.
What's that?

What they would do is they would
have explosives, the shot,

which they would lay
underground at a distance...

So they're waiting for an explosion?
They're waiting.

I think you can sort of see there's
an anticipation in... Fear. Fear.

Yeah. Yeah. This has really made me
think about my dad's life

and it's really hit home what
a difficult time he had. Yeah.

And each brushstroke
is sort of him,

putting his memory from his head...

Exactly. Yeah.
..onto that canvas. Yeah.

Was your dad classically trained,
then, was he? No. No.

Not trained at all.

He'd had some time off work with
a back problem, and my mum

gave him some watercolour paints
just to pass time while he was off.
Yeah.

And he started to do these
sketches of the mines from memory

of the time when he was in the pit.
Did you ever see him paint? Yes.

All over the house.

He'd be on the floor, on his knees,
by the light of the window.

Used to be in the bath and he'd
have them up on top of the cabinets,

so you'd have all these big, burly
miners looking down

while you were in the bath!
Yeah, yeah.

How many paintings
did your father do, then?

I think there must be about 40.

A lot of them,
the National Coal Mining Museum,

my mum donated them there.
So, is your dad still with us, then?

No, sadly he died in 1988. He was

very...patient, very into nature.

You know, there was a sensitivity
about him. He was a gentle giant.

So, what's wrong with the painting,
then?

Well, right in the middle here,
there's a big scratch

and we were moving furniture
and as we turned the table, brushed

the painting, so it was covered
over and I put it in the attic.

I'd like to donate it to the
National Coal Mining Museum,

along with the others...
That's nice.

It's something that needs sharing.
I think it is time to let it go.

He lives on through his paintings.

Yeah. Thank you for bringing this
in. You take care now. Bye. Bye-bye.
Bye, Gwyn. Bye.

You love your dad and he's not here.

But I'm sure he'd be really
happy about what's going to happen

to it, hopefully.
I feel very proud of him

and prouder, I think,
than I've ever felt.

It's a nice thing what Gwyn
is doing,

giving this over to the museum.
It's quite an emotional painting,
don't you think? Yeah.

It's a beautiful painting. It needs
cleaning, though, as well, doesn't
it?

Yeah, because if I repair
this scratch... Right.

..it'll have a halo around it,
you know, because there's

a lot of dirt on here, so I'm going
to do a surface clean... OK.

..re-varnish...
Yeah. ..I'll retouch that. OK.

It's going to look very different,
in a good way. You look excited.

Look at you. I am!
Good luck. That's great.

It's really nice,
having this painting to work on.

It takes me
back to a memory of when I was

training as a student in Newcastle

and one of my first paintings was a
painting by a 19th-century painter.

It was of Miners Under The
Coaly Tyne, it was called.

I'm keen to get this
out of the frame

and have a look at the
back of the painting.

So, let's have a look.

Woo! Labels!

Wow!

Mining Memoirs, number eight,
Shot Lighter.

Artist name, Norman Phillips.
It went into an exhibition in 1968.

This will be something really
nice to tell Gwyn

because this will be
in an exhibition catalogue

and that gives the artist
and the work provenance.

So that is a really nice
thing to have.

The barn's next arrivals
are Lydia Jones and her mother,

Vivienne, from London.

They have a precious relic for the
attention of expert with needle

and thread Sara Dennis.

Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi.
Hold on a minute.

Before you get what's in the box
out, you guys look really cool!

Aw, thank you.
What's that, 1950s? Yes, yes.

1950s, yeah. Lydia's influence
on me. I'm a vintage trader. OK.

So we both like to look the part.

All right. So, in there must be
something vintage, then? Yes.

And something '50s.
OK, let's have a look.

So this is the wedding tiara,
"tiara" being quite a grand word...

Yeah.
..currently, for what it looks like,

but the tiara that my nana
wore on her wedding day.

And your nana's name is...?
Pamela. OK.

And we don't have a lot of her
things, cos she never really kept

much, but she passed away last year

and when we were clearing her house,
we found a box at the back

of a cupboard and when we opened
it up, we found this inside.

As it was in a hairnet,
when I unwrapped it,

little bits of diamante and pearl
started falling off it.

We opened it up probably a week
after Lydia got engaged. Yeah.

So it seemed like a present
sort of arriving cosmically! Yeah.

Yes. Please,
please tell us about your mum.

She was just the best,
most wonderful person.

She was very glamorous and she was
a model before she got married...

Oh, she was a model?
Yes, we have got quite a lot of her
modelling photographs,

including one where she's modelling
the "new zig-zag parting".

She was a real trendsetter
in the 1950s, and beautiful hair,

platinum blonde.

She's got, you know, the perfect
flicks by the end of the '60s.

I always used to think,
if you pushed a marble in one side,

it could go all the way round
and come out the other side!

Very glamorous, then! Yeah.

How would you feel,
wearing this, on your wedding day?

It's very hard to put into words,
but she passed away so unexpectedly.

I always thought she'd be there.
Yeah.

So to know that she's
here in this sense... Yeah.

..for me,
that just feels like she's here.

Yeah. And the most glamorous part
to be here! Yeah, exactly.

So, may I have a look at it?
Absolutely, yes.

It is silk.

It's wrapped in silk and it looks as
though somebody's made it for her.

Yeah, I think
definitely through her modelling,

she will have had all kinds of
connections. So, what do you
actually want me to do with it?

Because obviously some of the bits
are missing. Yeah.

We keep saying how glamorous
my nana was and I've just been

thinking if I'm wearing something
of hers on my big day... Yeah.
..I want it to show that off.

But I'm presuming that you
want to keep as much of the original

there as possible.
Original is important, for sure.

Sounds like we've got enough
to get going on,

cos we want to restore your
grandmother's glamour into that.

Thank you so much.
Thank you very, very much indeed.

It's my pleasure. Take care now.
Bye. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye.

The last year has been very
difficult, since she died,

but finding the tiara and knowing
that it's going to be restored

and for such an exciting
event like Lydia's wedding,

it's like the sun's come out again.

Having my nana's tiara

when she can't be here herself is
a dream come true, really.

So, how do you start fixing a tiara?
Well, I think this tiara... Yeah.

..I'm going to strip it all off,
clean the diamantes,

clean the pearls... Yeah.

..and then, I need to somehow
straighten these wires. OK.

Or whether it's maybe new wires.
Well, that ain't a problem.
I can get Brenton on that,

but you're going to take it
completely apart? Yeah.

The silk thread's rotten
and once I take the silk thread off,

it's going to fall apart anyway.

OK. Sounds like you've got a lot
to do. But it will work out.

I know it will. It's in your hands,
isn't it? Yeah. Bless you.

So, before I do anything
with the actual tiara,

I have plotted out this very
complicated-looking diagram

of where things are and where
I want things to be, eventually.

Because there's lots of bits
missing,

I'm not remotely mathematical,
it's coloured pencils,

so I'm literally just
putting in tiny little dots.

I've made the diamonds pink
and the pearls green,

so at least I can see
the pattern of what's going on.

I'm going to start taking off the
precious pearls and diamonds.

They're diamante, they're costume.
They're not expensive,

but I want to keep them as intact
and safe as possible cos

I do not want to lose any,
because my diagram has told me

I've got just the right
number of pearls,

so if I lose one, I'll be down on my
hands and knees, looking for it!

Fine-art restorer Lucia is preparing
to tackle the grime

hiding the detail in the painting
by a former miner.

There's a bit of surface dirt.
You can see the
greyness on the swab there.

But before that, she wants to
assess the damage that saw it

confined to the loft.

Oh, this is quite good.
Basically, that scratch

is not too deep at all.

Once it's had its first
coat of varnish, I'm going

to be able to just do minor
retouching along there.

I know that Gwyn was
devastated by the scratch,

but to be honest,
it could have been a lot worse.

I'm going to do a surface clean.

I'll be using an aqueous solution,
which is basically distilled water,

with a few drops of ammonia
in it just to break the surface

tension of the water
and enable it to work.

When it's dirty like this,
it really flattens all the surface

colours and you get less contrast
between the lights and the dark.

So by the time I've finished and
put a new varnish on the surface,

we'll get a lot more contrast.

And it will be a lot easier to
read what's actually going on,

and to be honest,
after all my years and experience,

I never fail to be
thrilled by that.

There's a lot of emotion
going on in this painting,

which Norman put into it because
he'd experienced this lifestyle,

it's what he did for a job,
so he really feels for these men,

he knows what they're going through,
anticipation of fear

and that intense waiting,
waiting for the shot blast.

And I think that's really
captured in these little,

tiny beads of sweat.

Two beads of sweat captured
in the light of this miner's lamp.

Very expressive, it says it all.
It's fantastic!

Now that Lucia's cleaned away
the grime to reveal the oil

painting's true colours, she can
apply a coat of protective varnish.

I'm going to keep brushing it

until it's nearly dry cos that'll
give it a nice matt finish.

Next, she can turn her attentions to
the surface damage. I'm going to

start the retouching of
this scratch across the centre

of the painting.

Amazingly, most of it's
disappeared with the cleaning

and the varnishing.
It was superficial.

But there are just a few high
points that have been exposed

of the underlayer of white, so
I'm just going to touch those out.

So I'm using my synthetic resin
and my dry pigments, which are all

pure individual pigments, and I'll
mix them up and I'll make a paint.

I can't use anything
like oil paints.

Although this is oil paint,
you would never retouch with oil

paint because it discolours
within a year, or less.

With retouching, I'm trying
to just get the tonality right,

I don't have to use the same
materials as the artist.

My materials will always
sit quite differently,

so future generations should always
be able to distinguish what

I do to what the artist has done.

That's the intention,
as well as getting quite good colour

matching, so your eye doesn't stop
when you're looking at the painting.

I'm very pleased with that.

It's gone very well, and that
scratch, I defy anybody to see it.

It's actually gone really well.
It's disappeared.

The barn's next arrival
is Brian Polly,

with a much-loved item
he's known all his life.

He's hoping clock restorer
Steve Fletcher can resurrect it.

Hello. Hi. I'm Brian. Hi, Brian.
Pleased to meet you.

Right, what have you brought along?
Well, I've brought a clock...

..which was a wedding present
to my parents in 1948. Right, OK.

The history of the clock dates back
to a bit of a wartime romance...

Oh, right, yeah.
..between my parents.

When the Second World War
broke out in 1939,

my mother was posted
overseas in the WAAFs,

the Women's Auxiliary Air Force,
two years in North Africa. Right.

My father, coincidentally, had
also been posted to North Africa,

in his signals unit.
And then, in 1944,

my mother by that time was billeted
in the Hotel Regency... Right.

..and as I understand it, there were
20 WAAFs billeted upstairs

and the foyer of the hotel
downstairs was permanently

besieged by servicemen,
wanting to take the ladies out.

And your father was one of those?

Yes, one night, my father was
one of those servicemen who arrived

and met my mother.

So, they got together then
and when did they get married?

They got married in Sidmouth,
in Devon,

in 1948 and one of the wedding
presents was this clock.

What are your memories
of this clock?

Well, it was always
pride of place on the mantelpiece.

I always remember at bedtime... OK.

..I could stay up
until the clock struck,

which always seemed to strike
far too quickly.

So this clock was with your parents
all the time from

when they were married. Yes.
Now, how long were they married?

They were married for 64 years.

64 years? 64 years.
Oh, my goodness me!

Yeah, my mother passed away in 2012

and my father moved to an assisted
living apartment near us.

And the clock became probably
more important then

because he suffered
from very poor eyesight,

so his daily timetable relied
very heavily on the chimes

of the clock telling him
what time of day it was.

So when I visited, the first topic
of conversation was normally - is

the clock telling the right time
and could I wind it up for him?

OK. And why have you brought
it along today?

Well, it doesn't really work
any more. Oh, right. OK.

It certainly doesn't strike
as I remember it...
No. ..in my childhood.

As you can see, it's in need of
some care and attention. Yeah.

The casing is obviously
quite grubby. Yeah.

And the hands and the dial,
similarly, have lost their sparkle.

I think there's a few tiny
pieces of damage.

I would love it to be restored,
if at all possible, as it was on

the day they received it in 1948, so
I can restore it to pride of place.

Yes. On our mantelpiece. Yeah.

And hopefully, pass it on to my
grandchildren and future

generations. Brian, thank you very
much for bringing this clock in.

I really look forward to working
on it. Thank you. Bye-bye, now.

I'd be absolutely delighted
if Steve could restore the clock.

The clock was a very special item
to my parents and it was a very

special item to myself
and my brother, as we grew up.

In particular, I would love to hear
it striking properly again

because that's one of my most
long-lasting memories of the clock.

There are a few things that Brian
said were wrong with this clock

and I can see that the hands have
been repainted at some time

and the dial as well because that's
quite tatty. The mechanism...

I'm just going to take the gong
out first of all.

The gong was quite loose
and if the gong's loose,

it doesn't resonate the way that it
should do, so I think that's

just a matter of tightening that up
and that'll improve that hugely.

I think this clock is certainly
really very, very dirty and I

can see there's quite a lot of
worn holes that I'll need to

replace with new bushes.

I'm going to pop the case
over to Will,

so he can polish it up
and make it look beautiful.

On Sara's bench,

the 1940s bridal headpiece is ready
for its piece-by-piece restoration.

I've got the naked tiara,
minus the pearls and diamonds,

and it's in a little
bit of a crooked state.

Before she sees to the hundreds
of jewels, the crumbling wire

frame needs the expertise
of silversmith Brenton West.

Hey, Brenton. Hiya.

I've brought you this tiara. It's a
little bit sad. It is, isn't it?

Yeah. I wondered if you could
help me with the wire work.

Is this silk on here? Yeah.

I think the silk's keeping
those spiky bits in place.

Well, they need to be held properly
in the wire of the base. Exactly.

And I see you've got a nice
drawing there.

I've got a mathematical diagram.
You HAVE been busy!

And that's all
the measurements down there.

And that's it, I think. Right.
See you in about a year, then!

Thank you. Thanks, Brenton. OK.

Lots of very thin wires in here.

I've just cut down some of this silk
here to reveal three wires.

They are the main frame of the tiara

and I'd like to save these three
wires and use them again.

However, the uprights are all
a bit frail and a bit bent.

There's one fallen off. I'm going
to remake those and wire them

in like these were originally done.

It'll make it a lot stronger
and a lot better.

So, originally, the diamante
will have been really sparkly

and glamorous,
a bit like Pamela herself,

and over time and in storage,
they've got a bit dull, a bit dark.

To clean the diamante,
Sara can use an ultrasonic bath,

but the synthetic pearls need
a careful hands-on approach.

I'm washing these
pearls in plain soap.

I think it's making a better job
to do them individually.

I'm being really gentle.

I'm just using a soft brush
and then, into rinsing water.

Really impressed with those,
they've come out really shiny.

Brenton's going to put some really
nice wire on the tiara.

So, I have to live up
to Brenton's work!

These parts I'm making now,
the little spikes,

are the parts that are going
to hold the jewels.

Got lots of these things to make.

Specified by Sara that these
have got to be 44mm long,

so that's what they're going to be.

It's got to be right,
or I'll get in trouble.

Brenton's made me
these lovely brass L shapes,

ready to attach the diamantes,
which I'm doing now.

So I've wired the little diamantes
onto stainless steel.

Very, very, very fine wire

and I'm literally wrapping the wire
round the brass. It's so fiddly!

It's the type of job you need
five pairs of hands.

So I've got my L there,
I've got my seven diamonds on.

And I'm now going to wrap the bar
and the diamante wire...

..with the silk
and I have to get it nice and even.

I'm going to be here for a long
time, doing these.

As Sara and Brenton work in tandem,

Lucia's solo restoration
of the miner's painting is complete.

Last screw going in.

I'm pleased with that. I can turn
it over and... First look.

That's great.
I'm really pleased with that.

I'm really pleased with
the varnish as well.

But the cleaning has really brought
out to the fore the brushstrokes

that Gwyn was
talking about and how

she remembered her father's
brushstrokes.

I'm thrilled to bits with this.
It was a real pleasure

and an honour as well to work
on Norman's painting and I think

Gwyn will be thrilled to see it
and, hopefully, very surprised.

Following its accidental damage,
the painting had

gathered 30 years of grime
while stored out of harm's way.

Gwyn's hoping her talented
father's personal

depiction of life down the mines
has now been restored.

There's a mixture of being excited
and a bit sad, cos obviously,

my dad's passed away.

I've been thinking about him a lot
since I left the painting,

hoping that when I look at it,
it's as I remember him kneeling down

in the living room, on his knees,
painting, and that's in my mind now.

I just can't wait now to see it.

Hello. Hello, Jay. How are you
doing? Hi, Gwyn. Hello, Lucia.

Lovely to see you.
I'm really excited to be here.

It's been a real honour to have this
painting in here cos your dad

is a very accomplished artist.

Oh, very accomplished, and it's such
an emotional painting. Yeah. Huge.

Yeah. As I walked in, I looked up...

I was... I was imagining him...

..walking along with me
through the barn door.

So...

This one's for you, Dad!
Thank you. Hopefully.

Gwyn, well, I hope you're going
to be very happy with it.

Oh! Look at that! The colours!

I didn't even know they were there.

Oh, look at that!
There's sort of blues in there.

When you move around.

Oh, look at that! The muscles
and the tension.

Oh, Lucia!

It's a great painting,
isn't it? Oh! Isn't it?

And the... I haven't even
thought about the scratch.

You don't need to think about it
any more. I don't. It's not even...

Never happened. It's gone.
I'm speechless.

It's truly a wonderful painting
and I think when you look at it,

you'll get more and more out of it.

When I took the backboard off,
there's a label

on it from an exhibition
that he exhibited in 1968.

Really? Yeah, yeah.

But that's part of the provenance,
so it's a very important part

of the history of what's happened
to this painting since 1968.

I can't stop smiling!

I can see him now... His bald head.

And he's got his lovely
little smile.

Very proud of him. Good. You should
be. Very proud. Yes.

Thank you so much. My...
My pleasure. Thank you.

What we're going to do is get this
wrapped up for you now,

so you can get it home. Thank you,
Jay. Continue smiling. I know.
Thanks, Jay.

It's just wonderful.

It's just so wonderful to see it,
not only the scratch gone,

but all beautifully cleaned

and all the figures are showing
through, and the light.

It's just wonderful. Wonderful!

That's just so special.

On his bench, Steve's taken apart
the mechanism of the chiming

clock, gifted as a wedding
present in the 1940s.

He thinks he's worked out why
it's not been working properly.

There are a couple of
really bad bearings.

This actually is a barrel,
which contains the main spring,

which drives the clock,
and the hole in the centre

there is really quite severely
out of align,

which means that instead of the
barrel turning in a uniform way,

it's actually turning a bit like
that, which will stop the clock.

So what I'll need to do is turn
that true, put a new bush in,

which is a new plug of brass,
and that should correct that.

I'm just doing it very, very steady,
so that I just take off enough.

Good.

And that'll be all ready now just
to pop a new bush into there,

a new bearing,
and it'll work really well.

Another bad bearing is
the centre bearing.

It is just too loose
and that'll cause an issue as well.

So I need to polish this pivot up
and pop a new bush in there

and that should help the clock.

So I just need to open up
the hole in this new bush into here.

I'm going to use a tapered
five-sided cutting tool.

And I'll just keep pushing
it in bit by bit

until the hole opens up just
enough for the pivot to slide into.

There we go. So there's just
enough movement there,

just enough room for oil,
as my grandfather would say.

Good. I just need to pop that in now

and that should complete the repairs
and I can get the clock back

together and, hopefully,
it'll all work nicely.

Good. That's gone in nicely.

I've just been wondering what to do
with the dial and hands

because I know that Brian
wanted them smartened up.

It's got a lacquer on it and the
dial is very stained and dirty, but

I think what's underneath is OK,
so I think I'm going to see

if I can just take the lacquer off
and see what's under there.

So I'll pop that into my clock
cleaning fluid

and I'll just see how it comes out.

As the brass work has its bath,
Will's about to start sprucing up

the damaged, lacklustre wooden case.

There's a tiny chip here
that needs to be replaced.

It looks like someone's already
tried to put a bit of filler

in there, but they haven't
sort of blended it in.

So I'm going to take the old filling
out, put a new one in there,

blend it in with the rest
of the lovely oak colour,

and then just give it a clean
and a wax over.

But all in all, it should come up
really, really nicely.

So the filler I'm using is quite
light, so I'm adding a little bit

of brown umber here to give it
a bit more of a darker tone.

This isn't the final colour.

It just creates a really good
foundation when I come to painting

that woodgrain effect
on the surface.

That has come up so well.

That's absolutely brilliant.
I'll just take the hands out.

Fantastic.

They're going to look great against
the woodwork that Will's doing.

It's going to look beautiful.

I'm going to start mixing up
the pigments for the colouring.

We'll use a tiny bit
of shellac polish

and probably use
a little bit more brown umber.

Right, well,
that's quite a nice colour.

I'm going to start getting that
colour back onto the surface.

I've worked on quite a few clocks
with Steve in the past,

and I always try to get
the casing looking as beautiful

as I can.

With this clock, I really hope that
Steve can get this striking again

like it once did,
because it's that striking sound

that hopefully brings back memories
of Brian's dad and his childhood.

Well, that's the clock case
cleaned now.

It just needs a touch of wax,
then I can get it over to Steve.

I've got to the point now of popping
the clock back together again.

There's an order that everything
has to go back in.

I've got it all assembled now,
and I'm just going to wind up

the two main springs. I'll just
wind up the strike first.

Then the time side.

I'm just going to check
and see whether the strike

is working all right.

MECHANISM CLICKS

That's nice and lively,
so that strike's going to work

really well now.

I'll just pop the pendulum on.

And that's a good-sounding tick
and a good lively action as well.

So just wait for the case to come
back from Will and I can pop it in

and get everything else up together.

After hours of meticulous work,
Sarah's now finished reattaching,

in their new arrangement,
all of the tiara's countless gems.

That's all the diamonds,
all the pearls in place.

My fingers survived, just!

I've just got to do the
wrapping, which is my favourite bit.

It was in such a state,
it's been quite difficult to get

it back to looking like something
that somebody would want to wear

on their wedding day.

It's been a labour of love,
I think, this one.

The tiara, once worn 60 years ago
by a stylish young bride,

came to the barn brittle and bent,
and its remaining gems had lost

their sparkle.

Back with mum Vivienne,
Pamela's granddaughter, Lydia,

is hopeful she'll be able to wear it
at her own upcoming nuptials.

It's been wonderful to think
that the tiara will be involved

in my wedding day,
as a way of having Nana with me.

It will mean a huge amount to wear
it and to be able to show it off.

I'm feeling so excited
about seeing it.

I know it's going to look
different, but I still want

to look at the tiara
and see my mother.

Hello! Hi. How are you doing,
ladies?

Oh, my goodness.

I'm very excited to see
what it might've transformed into.

And you remember what it looked
like before, don't you?

It had a sort of wonky charm!

To be...to be nice!
That was polite, wasn't it?!

That's a really polite way
to put it!

I really want to show you.
I don't want to hold you in suspense

any longer. You ready? Yes. Yeah.

Oh! Wow.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh.

Oh, it's beautiful!

You are clever. Thank you.

It's a pleasure.
Oh, my goodness.

I had no idea you were going to be
able to make it look like that.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, it's wonderful.

I just... Yeah, I can't believe it's
something I'm going to be wearing.

Yeah.

It's a little bit of her
with you on your day, isn't it?

To channel her, about to get
married, as well.

Mm. When I'm in that spot,

that'll be probably
quite overwhelming on the day.

Thank you both so much.

Thank you. Let's go very
carefully! Take care.

Bye. Bye. Thank you.
I'll wait for the photos! Yes!

Exciting!

To have something my nana
would recognise as her tiara

and to have something that is
beautiful and can last and last

and last - amazing.

Just an amazing feeling.

Another treasured item
is almost ready to go home.

The chiming clock.

Hey, Steve. All done!

Fantastic! Oh, I can't even see
where you've patched that.

No. "Patched what?", you say!
Absolutely!

It's absolutely perfect. Brian's
going to really, really like this.

Fingers crossed.
When it's all together,

it's going to look cracking.

These cases are really quite
well made, aren't they? They are.

I'm going to let you
get on with it. OK.

So I've just got to get it
all back together.

Pop the movement in first.

I'm going to put the
all-important gong in now.

Good.

The tick of a clock is like
the heartbeat of the clock,

and the strike of the clock
is like the character

of the clock.

CLOCK STRIKES

Oh, that's really sweet.

Absolutely fantastic.

It's a nice job.

A 1940s wedding gift, the handsome
timepiece took pride of place

at home throughout
the couple's 64-year marriage.

Brian has returned, hoping to hear
the tick and chimes

of his late parents' clock,
which fascinated him as a child.

Obviously, after nearly 70 years,
it was fairly tired

and in need of some repair.

If the strike can be made to work
properly, that would be wonderful.

Above all, very excited.
A little apprehensive,

but very excited.

Hello! You all right, Brian?
Very well indeed, thank you.

So, what are you expecting to see,
or hear, underneath there?

I'd love to hear it striking.
But as long as it works,

I'll be very happy indeed.

When was the last time
you heard it striking?

My father died about five years ago,
and that's the last time,

somewhat strangely,
it worked properly.

Since I inherited it,
it's never worked properly.

Right. OK, are you ready?

I hope so.

Here we go.

Wow!

It's like a new clock!
Can I touch it?

Of course you can. It's yours.

Wow. I imagine that's
as they received it in 1948

when they got married.

Can you hear anything?

GENTLE TICKING

I can. It's working.
Excellent.

It's really, really good.
I'm absolutely delighted.

And the finish on it is superb.

Will done the outside.
Yeah. It looks good. Yeah.

You hear it ticking. Yeah.

Is there anything else
that you need to hear? The strike.

OK.

Would you just like to open up
the door? Yes, certainly.

Move the hand up to the six o'clock.

CLOCK STRIKES

Wow.

I don't think I've ever heard it
strike like that,

so you've done a wonderful job.
Thank you.

I think if my parents were here now,
they'd both be

very proud. I think my mother would
have dissolved into tears by now!

Aw, really? So where's it
going to go now, then?

What are you going to...?

There's a space already cleared on
the mantelpiece in my living room!

And hopefully my grandchildren
will be fascinated by it,

as I was when I was young.
Yeah.

Thank you for bringing it in.
Thank you very much indeed.

You're very, very welcome.
I really enjoyed working on it.

Thank you very much. Take care.
Bye now.

I'm really, really pleasantly
surprised that the clock

looks brand-new, but I'm shocked
it looks so good.

It was a wonderful feeling
to hear the clock striking again

after so many years.

My parents, they'd be so proud.

The spirit of their happy years
lives on with the clock, really.

Join us next time
as worn-out treasures of old...

It's going to be hard to replace
100-year-old screws.

..are granted a new lease of life...

Oh, my God.
It's absolutely wonderful!

..in the Repair Shop.