The Repair Shop (2017–…): Season 7, Episode 39 - Episode #7.39 - 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 returned
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.
Go on!



..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.

It's made it all worthwhile.



In The Repair Shop today...

This might bend, and I don't want
that to happen.

It's a bit of a scary moment.

..Brenton and Suzie bend
over backwards to restore

a delicate purse.

I can best liken this to origami.

And Steve's under no illusions

as he and Will
fix a magician's table.

I'm obviously going to have to use
all the tricks up my sleeve

to fix this one.

But first at the barn are
Janice Monty and her daughter,

Nicole, from Merseyside.

They've recently
discovered a family heirloom

and hope cobbler
Dean Westmoreland can revive it.

Hi. Hi there. You OK? Yeah, you?
Come in. Yes, welcome.

Lovely to meet you. Nice to meet
you. Cor, look at those!

They've seen some things.
Haven't they? Yeah.

Yeah, they're top shoes.
Oh, OK.

They were my nan's. Yeah, Rita,
my mother-in-law.

She was a professional dancer
from about the age of 14... 14.

..and she worked all over Britain
and Ireland, in the music halls

or palladiums, and she was working
with different stars, the likes

of Tommy Cooper and Max Bygraves.
Right. Wow! Superstars of the era.

These were superstars of the day,
you know, and she was in the chorus

line and things. We were clearing

my mother-in-law's flat out because
we were putting it up for sale,

and my husband found them in the
garage and said, "Look at this."

The garage?! Yeah, it was like a
shoe box, broken.

So that's why they're pressed
down as well, because we didn't

realise, and just things
have been put on top

and she never said anything. They
must have been in there for years.

Yeah, probably about 23 years
they've been in that garbage.

Wow. I love the repairs and the kind
of journey they've been on,

and the little patches and new bits
and ld bits. It's kind of... Yeah.

I think it adds to the real
character of them, you know?

It does, yeah. Yeah.

Was that her whole
career for her life? No,

she stopped, probably about 26,
when she met her husband.

I think she wanted to start
the family and she knew

she didn't want to travel.

But I know that she did do dance
and perform with my grandad and

they'd go to dance halls and just...
So just because she stopped in her

20s professionally dancing, doesn't
mean... She didn't stop dancing.

Even with dementia, that was one
of her biggest joys.

I remember her being, like, 70 to
80, still doing, being able to do

the can-can and get her leg to,
like, here and hold it. "Stop it!"

Yeah. And, like, I once found
her, she had slipped and fell

into the splits and she just sat
there for ages because she just

couldn't get up,
but she was comfortable. No!

And then had to wait until I came
there to help her up. And we would

say to her, to get her up into the
wheelchair, "Come on, this is..."

Get her to dance and she'd dance...
Dance to the wheelchair.

Yeah, you could get her to tap, but
you couldn't get her to stand and

walk. If she couldn't remember much,
she could always remember to dance,

and then she'd come back
to being my nan again.

So, Nic, were you very close with
your nan? Yeah, very, very close.

Like, from a really young age.
I could do no wrong, even

when I was doing wrong.
Ah, the golden child here. Yeah.

Like, if my mum and my dad said
no, I'd just go to my nana, like...

Yeah, we had a very close
relationship, like, to the point

where I wear
her wedding ring to this point.

That's so nice.

But, yeah, she was one of a kind.
Even in her last days,

really, as well,

Nicole helped to care for her with
me. And I was the last person

she spoke to before she passed,
so... She told me she loved me

and that, so...

And then... Mm. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Nice chance to reflect on such a
huge part... Yeah, that's why it's

really important to get them fixed
to the best I can.

Although they're in quite a state
now, they look like they were taken

care of at one point.

I guess her feet were her tools,
almost, in a way. It is.

That's the tools of her trade, isn't
it? Tools of her trade.

I buy expensive spanners.
She buys expensive shoes. Yeah.

THEY LAUGH

So what is your idea with the shoes?
Mainly to make them look

more like shoes again. OK. But it's
more just so we can display them

and people can hold them and I'm
not worried that they're

going to break.
I want them to still be her.

Yeah. It's just her, wrapped
up in these, isn't it?

Yeah, it's knowing how important
they were to her and how important

she is to me even now, and she'll
always be important to me.

So it's something that I know
I need to do for her.

Well, thank you both so much
for bringing these in.

Thank you. Looking forward to it.
Thank you. See you soon. Bye-bye.

Bye. Thank you.

For me, like, the shoes represent
a part of my nan's life

that I was never there to witness,
but she was so proud to tell me

about, and it showed how strong
she was to show me that I can

accomplish things like that as well.

I love my nan,

still, I miss her every day, still.

So this is a real challenge
because it's a conservation.

We've kind of got to use
what's already there.

I think I'm going to re-line
it, put a new insole in.

That'll sort the inside out,
give it some structure.

This coating that has been put on
is just basically a water-based

paint, and that needs scraping away
so we can see the original leather.

Then we can recolour it. On the
sole, we need to keep all this

history, and even the hole in the
outer sole

and the thinness of the toe taps,
that just shows how much

she did dance and what kind
of life she led.

I have just noticed, actually, on
here, I just found her name

has been written there,

which was probably written by Rita
herself, which I think Nic

and Janice will be pleased
if I could keep that.

We're going to take these laces
out, we'd like to keep

these original really.

So although this is quite
old leather, leather of that era,

the tannage on it was really high
quality, because they didn't rush

tanning leather.

That means all these cracks,
I can get in there and really clean

them really well, it should be able
to take it.

There's quite a lot to get off, so

there's quite a bit work to do.

Next, Diane Vaughan from Woking.

She's counting on Brenton West's
silversmithing expertise to

restore a beautiful but battered

token of love.

Hello. Hello. I'm Brenton.
I'm Diane. Hi, Diane.

Hi. Nice to meet you.
What have you got in the bag?

Well, I've got a silver purse
here that's about 90 years old...

That's lovely. ..and it's a very
special one because it was given to

my nan by my grandad.

He had this made specially
for her, for her wedding day. Wow!

And she carried it up the aisle
instead of a bouquet of flowers.

On the front here is the initials
that my grandad had engraved,

and there's V for Violet,
and F for himself, which is Frank.

That's lovely. And did she know she
was getting it or was it a surprise,

do you think?
I think it was a surprise.

Wow, she must have been made up.
Wonderful surprise, yes, especially

because they were so poor, and we
don't really know

how grandad was able
to save up to buy it.

Where did they meet?

They met at a local dance,

and my nan was working at the time
on her family farm...

OK. ..and her father had insisted
that she worked there for no pay.

My grandad was a groom
for the local Lord Yarborough.

Apparently, it was love at first
sight, and they got married

the following year, in 1929,

and they was so, so devoted
to each other.

And how long were they together for?

They were together
for over 55 years. Wow.

I've got so many happy memories

of visiting them, being with them.

And they made a wonderful
couple and they absolutely

adored each other.

This must have meant such a lot.

It's a real symbol of their
love for each other.

Have you got the purse now?

It belongs to my mum... Right.

..and she would love to display it,
but unfortunately it's in a bit

of a sorry state.

There's quite a few dents
on both sides, actually,

here and over on the other side.

The clasp doesn't work very well.

It's very difficult to close, and
then the hinges are a little bit

skewwhiff as well, so... OK.

The inside is a leather insert,
which is very dilapidated,

and you can see, just about,

the V and the F. OK.

So if those were visible, then it
would be really special, then. OK.

I will give it my best shot.
Thank you very much indeed.

They are notoriously tricky
to repair...

Yes. ..but I'm sure I can make it
look a lot better than it is.

Thank you. OK. Thank you so much.
OK. Bye-bye. See you soon. Bye-bye.

The purse is so special
to our family.

At the moment, it doesn't represent
the enduring love of my

grandparents, so I would love to

have it back to the condition that

my grandfather gave it
to my grandma.

These purses, the silver
is very thin, and it's easy

to damage them,

and that's why it ends up looking
like this.

I've got to get this leather out
and get that over to Suzie,

and then I've got to knock the dents
out and give it a good polish.

So this is leather attached to
paper, and that's just

glued in here.

So I'm just going to gently
ease this out.

I don't want to tear it.

So that's it all out.

It all looks a bit sorry for itself.

I can now get that over to Suzie,

see what she can do with it.

Dean's clean of the tap-dancing
shoes has left their leather

in a much better state,
allowing him to focus

on reinforcing the structure.

This is lining calf, nice and soft,

quite thin,
but quite strong as well.

So we're going to glue that up
and just line it in the back here,

and that'll give a nice, clean
surface inside.

It'll look beautiful.

As with many shoes of that era,
the beautifully fine stitching,

you don't really see such
high-quality stitching

on modern shoes.
They were very well made -

which they would have had to be,
to be in storage for so long.

Just pulling it against the heel
shape, round there,

and that will push it right
into the back of the shoe

and just take the original shape.

That's really nice and pressed
up against there now,

and it's nice and secure now.

But before we put the insock in,

there is some securing of the sole.

I'm just going to pull a few pins in
the original holes where it's come

away, where the pins will go
through, hit the metal,

curl over and secure the sole.

We don't want to put too many
in because there are a few

of the original ones there.

So it's quite secure now,
and I think that's ready

for an insock.

I think it's ready
for the acrylic dye now.

I think white's
going to be too loud

and it's going to look too new.

So it's going to be this sort
of bone colour.

I think we need to keep
that kind of aged look.

We're trying to get close to the

sort of finish when Rita
wore the shoes.

I know they're not being used,
they're just for display,

but they should last
a very long time.

So I'm pretty happy with the uppers.

Now I can address the bottoms.

Need to be very careful. The hole
here and the worn-out toe plate

is where she danced.

These have touched the
dance floor, lived a real life,

so we want to keep all that and just
make it nice and clean.

Get it closer to a natural
sort of leather colour.

So I'm going to be using a
combination of glass, that'll allow

me to scrape some
of the leather away,

and then to smooth off the finish,

I'll be using a few different
grades of sandpaper.

So, using glass is kind of
a shoemaker's thing.

It's one of the sharpest tools in
the box and it's relatively cheap.

I don't have many pictures in the
house with glass in them any more.

I'm now going to do the rest
of the shoe, and the other shoe,

being very careful to keep
Rita's name here.

Beverley Swain, from Sussex,
is the next arrival.

She's hoping Steve Fletcher's
mechanical know-how can fix an item

that conjures up precious memories.

Hello. Hello. How are you doing?
Good, thank you.

So, Beverley, there is something
special about this table.

Yeah, it was my father's
magician's table.

It's got a hidden compartment,
so there would be something

hidden in there, and during the
show, he would pull out a...

Like a rabbit? Well, yeah, a rabbit
or... Or a bird or something...

Something like that. ..would come
out of there? Whatever you wanted to

hide in there.
I thought it was magic!

What's your dad's name? Peter.
So what kind of tricks did he...?

Did he do loads of tricks?

He did a lot of sleight-of-hand
things, you know? Yeah.

He had a top hat and he'd pull,
you know, pull things

out of that and that kind of stuff.

Growing up with a dad who could do
magic tricks, that must

have been amazing. Yeah, birthday
parties were good as a child.

Got a dad who can do magic
tricks, it's quite cool.

That is very cool. Very, very cool.

So is your dad, Pete, still with us?
No, it's 20 years this year,

actually, he died
Christmas Eve, so... Oh. Yeah.

So it's stirred up memories of him.
Sure. In a nice way, though. Yeah.

In a nice way.
Did your dad do magic full-time?

No, no, no.
He was an amateur magician.

So was he in the Magic Circle, then?
Yes, he was. He was a member

of the Magic Circle, yeah. Right.
So how does this trick work?

Right. So he would lift up the drum
on the top and explain

that there's nothing there.

Put it back on.

Get his wand out. Abracadabra.
Yeah. Yeah.

And then secretly step
on the mechanism.

It would open...

LOUD CLANK

..discreetly. Whoa! Cor blimey!
THEY LAUGH

You all right? Yeah!

But obviously it wouldn't be as loud
as that! And then pull out

what was hidden in there -
a rabbit or a bunch of flowers.

OK, so basically, once the ring
is on there, those

flaps are hidden. Lift the ring off
now. Yeah. Then what's un...?

OK. There's a hidden compartment.
I get it.

But then, obviously, whatever's
in there, when he lifts the ring

back off, the mechanism has to close
those flaps, doesn't it?

Yes.

Secretly, you would close
it, so it wouldn't show

that it had been opened. OK.

But... And that doesn't work, then,
does it?

Well, no. The mechanism's broken.

So now we know how this trick works,

are we going to get in trouble
with the Magic Circle?

Well, they're not meant to reveal
the answers, are they? So...

No. ..you might do. I don't want to
get in trouble with

the Magic Circle. That's no good.
No. They can make you disappear

and all that, innit?
That's not good!

THEY LAUGH

It's not good, is it?

You up for this one, Steve?
Um... I think so.

I've not seen anything
like this before.

My mind is boggling already,
how I'm going to do

this or what I'm going to do.
And the way it looks on the outside,

it looks a bit flaky.
Yeah, it's a bit...

It was, in my memory, but I think
as a child, you have, you know,

everything's bigger and sparkly,
isn't it?

So you want it looking a bit
brighter than it does now?

We'll get that sorted. Beverley,
thank you for bringing this in.

Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Bye-bye. OK, thank you.

You take care. Bye-bye now.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

My father and I were very close.

I have very few possessions
of my father's,

and the magic table is such a large
part of who he was.

To make it come better
would be so lovely.

I was really dying to look at
the underneath of this,

and now I can see exactly
how the mechanism releases

and everything flies open.

I think what I'll do is, I'm going
to take the latch mechanism out

and see if I can just silence
it somehow.

Oh, and I must just take the most

important thing out here,

which is the wand, because you can't

do any magic without the wand.

Put it safely in there.

This is the release mechanism.

So let's just see, the problem
here is there's a screw

in here that just hits a piece
of metal here to make the stop,

and just makes that bang noise.

So I'm not sure how I'm going to do
this, but I'm obviously

going to have to use all the tricks
up my sleeve to fix this one.

While Brenton prepares to remove
the dents from the silver wedding

purse, leather work expert Suzie
Fletcher's challenge is the lining.

Through the years of being open
and closed,

I think the leather got caught
repeatedly in the hinge

and we've got this extensive
hole here.

I feel, in order to do justice
to this lovely purse,

we can just make a new insert
to go in.

I'm just going to dismantle
this original lining.

I'm hoping that this is going
to come apart as complete

as possible, that I can use
this as my template to draw around.

This will give me an idea of how
this is particularly designed

and put together.

There we go.

Wow!

It is literally a series of folds
and creases, and now I've got

to copy that.

I always get to this point,
inside I'm going,

"Oh, gosh, I'm not sure if I'm going
to be able to do it,"

but when it comes together,
it's a wonderful thing.

I've got to anneal this silver purse
before I start to knock the dents

out of it, and that's the process
of heating it up and letting

it cool down.

This softens the metal,
makes it malleable and stops

it splitting or cracking.

Before I do that, I'm going to take
this pin out, so I've got two

pieces, and it'll
make it easier to work on.

I'm going to paint some
flux on to it.

This flux will protect the silver
and stop it getting fire-stained

when I heat it.

The other advantage of heating
this up is, once I've cleaned

all of this flux off of here,
heating it up will actually clean

the silver for me as well.

I normally polish an item
before I start working on it,

but in this case, I don't need to.

It'll be pretty clean.

The silver is very, very thin, so it
shouldn't take long to heat up.

So that is the form
that is going to create

this wonderful little lining.

What I need to do now is cover

it with this really fine leather.

I'm going to let that cool down now,
and then that's ready to start

working on.

Whilst this is drying, I'm going to
get on and make all the other

pieces ready for it to be assembled.

I've warmed up some pitch,
which is pine tree resin,

and I've pushed the two halves

of the silver purse into that,

and what that will do is that will

grip and support the silver

when I start to tap the dents out.

The reason I'm not knocking
these dents out with a big hammer

is I need to save this engraving
on the outside.

I really, really don't want to be
doing too much polishing

to the outside because the engraving
will soon disappear.

I'm just going to keep tapping away
until this is all smooth.

Now that that glue has dried,

I'm able to just cut out

around the card that will fold

into that lovely concertina.

I can best liken this to origami.

It is so complicated, but as it

starts to come together,

it's very straightforward.

I've completed the inner workings

of this lovely little purse.

It's ready to give back to Brenton.

I've taken the two sides
of the purse off the pitch,

and I'm now going to see
if I can get the pin to go back

up through the hinge. With
all my bashing, it's moved

it all about a bit.

I'm hoping the pin will go back
through OK and that the purse

will open and hopefully
click shut as well.

It's a bit of a scary moment.

I'm going to use this pair of
parallel pliers, which has a hole

that goes all the way through,
and I can push little bits

through at a time and then move
it down the pliers, so they're great

for this sort of thing.

I'm just going in a few millimetres

at a time. If I try and go too much,

this might bend, and I don't want

that to happen.

I always love the transformation
of silver, because it comes to me,

quite often, quite black
and tarnished with dents,

but I get my head down and get

bashing and quite often they come

out quite nicely.

This is really nice that Frank
bought this for Violet

on their wedding day.

I didn't buy my wife something like

this, but I did make our wedding

rings, which I gave her on our
wedding day.

So it opens.

And see if it closes.

CLICK

That's just what I wanted to hear,
that's so good.

Once this is polished, it's ready
for Suzie's leather work

to be put into it.

Thanks to Dean's hard graft,
the tap-dancing shoes have cleaned

up beautifully,
ready for a thorough polish.

It's just a very good quality
shoe wax in neutrals.

There's no colour in there.

A lot of elbow grease going on.

I'm sweating now!

HE LAUGHS

So now it's got quite a few layers
of wax on the heel, I can add

just a drop of water,

and that will help harden the wax.

With mire rubbing it, it'll bring
up a nice shine.

Almost ready to tap again.

After decades of dancing and
23 years neglected in the garage,

Rita's shoes were in a sorry state.

Her granddaughter, Nicole,
has returned with her mum

to collect them.

I'm hoping that Dean's made it so
they can last and hopefully

so we can show the rest
of our family and they can kind

of carry on my nan's, like, legacy,
I guess.

I just want them to be my nan,
really, again, because they were

once, and now we want
that back again.

Hello. Hi. How are you doing?
All right. You? I'm very good.

Hi there. Hello. You all right?
How are you both feeling?

Ooh! Excited.

Excited, nervous. Yeah? Yeah, a bit
anxious of how they're going

to look. So, these shoes, they mean
a lot to you guys, don't they?

Yeah. They do. Yeah?

My nan means a lot for me,
and this is a big part of her.

You ready to see them?
Definitely, aren't we? Yes.

Shall I do the honours?
Yes, please, Dean.

You ready? Ready. Yeah.

Wow!

Look at them!

That's really amazing.

Look, they kept the laces. And the
original laces and everything!

That... It's just fantastic,
isn't it? Thank you.

Thank you. You're very welcome.
I'm just a bit, like, speechless

with it, because you can actually
pick them up and not scared.

Yeah. It's amazing.
You can feel them, touch them.

And that's really important,
isn't it?

So I left the patch un-dyed because
I thought that told a story

within itself, you know.
Thank you. Yeah.

It does, it tells a story.

And you can see where her feet...
The crease. They're still there,

and that's what you wanted, wasn't
it? That's what you were...

It just shows my nan. That's what we
said. We didn't want them pristine.

We wanted Rita's character still
to be part of it,

and I think that... Dean, thank you.
Yeah. That's what it's done.

Yeah, really, thank you.
It was quite a challenge,

but... Yeah. I think they came up
all right. They came up amazing.

Thank you. Yeah.

Do you think Rita would be happy,
then? Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah?

In fact, I think she'll feel
that she's missing out

at this moment. Yeah. Yeah.

It's odd because, like, I can kind
of feel like I'm remembering things

that I kind of forgot, more of how
she danced with me when I was a lot

younger to compared to how she
danced with me when she got older

and I was caring for her. Yeah. But
even through those times, she was

always dancing.
It brings back the memories.

It makes it real, doesn't it?
Yeah. Makes it more real again.

Thank you. Thank you, Dean, you've
made a great job of that.

Thank you very much.
It was a pleasure to do.

Thank you. Thank you. You guys take
care now. Take care. Bye-bye.

See you later. Bye-bye.

Rita was a professional dancer.

And look at these shoes.

This tells her story.

I kind of feel like we lost the
last years because of my nan being

unwell, and dementia is not a nice
thing, so it's kind of nice to get

those good memories back.

It's very hard to kind of not
just want to cry,

because it's hard,
because she's not here to see them,

and, like, just knowing that I know
how happy she'd be as well.

At Steve's bench, scrutiny,
rather than sorcery, is proving key

to quietening the mechanism
of the magician's table.

I'm pretty sure I've worked out how
this was supposed to have worked.

The two sides of this slot here,

I'm sure, were tapered,

and the screw that came up
couldn't go all the way to the end

and make that loud bang.

It would... It would touch
the sides of the tapers,

so it was dampening it.

And that's just worn away.

So I've just got a bit of
piano wire and I've put a bend

in it so that it's like the taper
in the brass.

The screw that actually
goes through, when it runs

up, just gets caught

as soon as it starts narrowing.

So, hopefully, when the foot pedal
is pressed and the doors

open up and this flings
up, it won't make a sound.

This is going to be soldered
into this brass unit here,

and then the brass unit
is going to be soldered

on to the main shaft.

I now need to sort out the problem

with the resetting of the magic
table, because Beverley, when she

was trying to reset it, to actually

push this pin down,
she had to bash it like that.

And the reason why she was
having problems is because this

slope here, which is supposed to

push the latch out of the way,

this is all rough here and it

just wouldn't slide at all.

So I need to just smooth

this off, polish it up and make

it so that there's no
friction at all,

it will just slip on the latch.

Right. That's all
polished up nicely,

let's just see if it works.

Brilliant.

That works so, so well,

By the time I've lubricated it all,

that should be as quiet as quiet.

I just need to pop
it into the table.

That's all fixed in.

Now let's see if it works.

This should just press down nicely,

which it does.

That's working absolutely fine.

Let's just see whether
it's quiet or not.

OPENS QUIETLY

Brilliant.

That's just not making that real
bang as it comes up.

Fantastic.

Steve's fixed the mechanical side
of things, but the table's not yet

ready to give a sparkling
performance.

That requires
a different type of craftsmanship.

All right, Will? Hey, Steve.

I've got this magician's table

and it needs a bit of tender loving
care on the paintwork,

and I wonder whether you could sort
it out for me.

OK, I could do that.

What is that?

This is part of the trick.

This goes on top here...

..like that, then...

A rabbit or a dove
comes shooting out the top?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

THEY LAUGH

Can I leave it with you?
Please. OK. Thanks.

Well, this is the first magical
magician's table I've ever worked

on in my life.

I'm going to give the surface
a good clean now.

I'm using a damp cloth, just to
loosen up any of that surface dirt.

I wouldn't want to use
any white spirit or any other

chemicals, because that might
actually start taking away the paint

that I really want to preserve.

I really liked magic when I was
growing up, and I remember

having a magician, I think, at my...
Don't know how young I was,

five or six years old.

That's the first time I'd ever seen
the sort of pulling a rabbit

out of the hat trick.

And still to this day, I've got no
idea exactly how it works.

He pulled this rabbit out of a top
hat, and I can swear

to you that hat was empty
in the beginning.

So I have a lot of trust issues
when it comes to magicians.

Right, now that's all been cleaned,

I can start with the paintwork.

I've got these really good bronze
powders here.

I can mix these up with some shellac
polish - that acts as a medium

and helps bind
those on to the surface.

That's blending in really well.

I'm going to go round, touch again
all the scratched areas,

then I can move into the
scratched blue paintwork.

Brenton and Suzie's team effort
on the silver wedding purse

is almost complete, and already
paying off handsomely.

Suzie's done a lovely job
of this leather work, it absolutely

looks fantastic, so all I've got
left to do is to put

the chain back on.

This has got a little ring on it,
which is not soldered on both ends,

so all I've got to do is just pop
this on to here, like that, and then

just turn it with a pair of pliers,

and that's just bent straight again.

That chain's now on there

and the purse is ready to go

back to Diane.

The years hadn't been kind
to the purse.

It was tarnished, dented,
and the interior

damaged beyond repair.

But for Diane, it was a cherished
reminder of what her grandparents

meant to each other.

I'm a little bit nervous, knowing
how bad it was when I brought it in,

and I just really, really hope

that it looks a beautiful tribute

to my gran and my grandad

and their lovely love story.

Hello. Hello. Hi, Diane. Hi.

Hi, Brenton. How are you feeling?
Oh, very excited.

I can't wait!

It's the first time it's been out
of the family for 91 years.

And all the family know
that you've brought it into us

to get repaired?
Yes, they're all excited.

My mum, my dad.
Everyone's excited. Everyone?

Yes. Cor blimey!

So you'd best have done a good job.
THEY LAUGH

You ready to see it, yeah?
Very ready to see it.

Yes, I'd love to. Steve, do
you want to do us the honours?

Oh!

oh, that looks absolutely stunning!

This is what it must
have looked like. Yeah.

It just looks brand-new.

It's absolutely lovely.

Good, good.

Oh, that's absolutely gorgeous.

You can see their initials on there.

Oh, and the inside!

It's more than I imagined
it was going to be. Yeah.

Beautiful. I'm very, very,
very happy. Thank you.

Just looks so lovely!

It does, doesn't it?

My nan and grandad would be so,

so thrilled to see it like this.
Yeah. They would.

What are you going to do
with it now?

Is it going back to your mum?

Yes, it's going to go back
up to my mum.

She'll put my gran's
rings in there and pass

it on through the generations.

So the story can carry on
being told through that purse.

Yes, it will be.

It was a love story,

and this now is
a perfect symbol of that.

Yeah.
It wasn't before, but it is now.

Yeah. And thank you again. OK.

Thank you very much.

You're more than welcome.
Bye-bye, Diane. You take care now.

Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Seeing it in the condition

that I'm sure my grandad gave

it to my nan, it's just
very emotional.

I think my grandparents are looking

down and they'd be absolutely

thrilled to bits.

It's just really lovely to be able

to think of them now and to remind

ourselves that theirs was a true,

true love story.

Steve's ingenuity has got
the magician's table performing

as it should, and Will has nearly
finished ensuring it looks

spellbinding once again.

Well, I painted the legs gold, and

now I'm touching up the cracks
and chips around the outside

of the top.

It's exactly the same mixture that
I'm using of the bronze powder

and some shellac polish.

The table was inherited
by Beverley from her magician dad.

It's been a long time since my
father died.

It's 20 years and, you know,

memories fade
and it's objects that sometimes

sort of trigger memories,

and the magic table epitomised him,

you know, because it's eccentric
and vibrant and wacky.

So I'm looking forward to seeing it

so it can trigger my memories again.

Here she is. Hello. Hello.
How are you doing, Beverley?

I'm good, thank you.
Oh, bless you.

You look a bit nervous. A little
bit. A little bit nervous?

A little bit. Aw! Of course, when
you brought it in, it was a little

bit tired. Yeah. Well, it had done a
lot of tricks, hadn't it?

Done a lot of performances. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

Needed sprucing up a little bit.
Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.

Right, Steve...

Right. ..I think you
should do the honours. OK.

Oh...

Oh.

Oh, it's perfect, isn't it?

Thank you.

You know, what a privilege
to have somebody so skilled to make

it come alive again.

It's lovely.

Will has worked really hard
on this, getting the paintwork

to look vibrant again.
Thank you so much.

And it looks the same as well. Yeah.

It doesn't look different,
which is so nice.

And does it work?

Yeah, go on. Give it a go.
You know how to work it. Yeah.

Wow!

THEY LAUGH

Wow!

And to close it again...

Bring it all together.

Oh, there we go.

Perfect. Perfect.

Oh, thank you so much.

It brings him back alive again.

Yeah, he'd have been...so pleased.

Yeah. Beverley, thank you for
bringing this in.

It was a joy to see Steve
and Will work on this together,

and we'll get this shipped
up to you. Thank you.

Thank you, both of you. Thank you so
much. It was an absolute pleasure.

Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye. You
take care now. Bye-bye now. Bye.

Well done.

Nice one.

When I saw it at first, I could see
my dad, I could see his face,

I could see his big smile,
and it was just lovely.

It's just a perfect example
of him and a reminder.

They've done such a perfect job
on it, just as I thought they would.

They're magicians for a magic table!

Join us next time...

Sounding good.

..for more priceless restorations...

THEY GASP

They're fantastic!

..in The Repair Shop.