The Repair Shop (2017–…): Season 8, Episode 13 - Episode #8.13 - full transcript
Jay Blades and the team bring four treasured family heirlooms, and the memories they hold, back to life. First through the workshop doors today is Minty Barlow, with a miniature replica house. It was once part of a model village t...
Welcome to The Repair Shop, where
precious but faded treasures...
There's an awful lot of work
to do here.
Things are definitely going
to have to get worse
before they get better.
..are returned
to their former glory. Look at that!
Furniture restorer Jay Blades...
Bringing history back to life
is what makes The Repair Shop
so special.
..and a dream team
of expert craftspeople...
Solid as a rock.
It's actually quite miraculous,
to be honest!
..coming together
to work their magic...
Look at that! Tailor-made.
Just got to keep calm and carry on.
OK, here we go.
It's going to look great.
..employing heritage craft skills,
passed down the generations...
This is how it was, so this
is how it will be again.
..preserving irreplaceable
heirlooms...
Some object can have so much
emotional attachment to the family -
that's what pushes me
to want to get it right.
..the team will restore the items...
Oh!
..the memories... So that's the link
between you and your grandad...
And now my son. ..and unlock
the stories that they hold.
I'm just blown away!
I'm flying!
In The Repair Shop today,
a radio dating from the
Great Depression gets a boost.
It's exciting times,
but daunting, as well.
Buried treasure for Dom...
Look at what I have discovered
underneath - the original paint,
hidden underneath the sign...
..on an antique fairground game.
I'm confident I know what colour
to paint it.
And more colour restoration
as Louise applies
her specialist tricks of the trade
on a poorly painting.
I'm actually going to use the
funori, which is a seaweed product,
actually, and it'll go through
all those cracking areas
and bring them together.
Beneath the beams, Will Kirk
and Kirsten Ramsay are examining
the first job of the day.
What is this, Tudor? Elizabethan?
HE LAUGHS
Don't know what it is!
It's something that holds
very dear memories
for Minty Barlow from Bolton.
Hi. Hi, there. Hi, hello.
Oh, there it is.
What is this?
So this is a model village house
from Cleethorpes seafront.
So that's random, i'n't it?
THEY LAUGH
Cleethorpes had this model village
around the '50s and '60s.
It was a tourist attraction.
My parents got wind
it was being demolished,
I think in the '70s,
and my mum sent my dad
on kind of a mission to
try and procure a couple!
I don't know if he bribed, bought...
But we ended up with two
in our back garden in Grimsby
that I grew up with.
Why these? I mean, do they mean
quite a lot to your parents?
I think, at the time, my parents
just thought they'd be really cool
things to have, but they became
a bit more than that as I grew up,
I guess.
So my dad was a real character,
kind of a hybrid of Basil Fawlty
and Captain Mainwaring!
He was a real eccentric,
but he had this sense of magic.
He convinced me that
fairies lived here, and my memory
is that this maybe had little
chimney pots on because he could...
He made them smoke. Really? Aw!
Yeah, I think he soaked
something in cotton wool...
It was the '80s, it was probably
something really toxic!
But, yeah, I just believed that,
100%, this was the fairy house
in the garden and the fairies
were home
if the chimney smoked.
It was just magic. So sweet. Wow.
Sounds like your parents
were really special people
and your childhood must
have been amazing.
I mean, they were off their rockers!
They were a real pair of characters
but, yeah, there
was never a dull moment
growing up in Grimsby with them.
I went on to move to Bolton
and had my daughter,
11 years ago - Grace -
and, sadly, my mum passed away
just after she was born.
She was only eight weeks old.
And my dad, I lost
about four years ago...
..very suddenly,
so to have this restored,
it would bring a bit
of the magic back...
And my daughter thought
the exact same thing -
she thought fairies
lived there, too.
I don't think fairies would move
in how it is right now.
I think they'd be quite
disgusted with how...
It looks like they moved
out a long time ago!
More like trolls are squatting -
isn't it? -
tan fairies are living there.
Why have you decided
to have this repaired now?
Over the last few years, as Grace
is getting older and YouTubers
are taking over fairies and things
like that, it's kind of more for me,
a bit selfishly, I guess.
I miss my parents dreadfully.
It's the best thing in the world,
having a daughter,
but sometimes I just really
miss being one.
And I think, to have it looking
nice again in the garden...
Really sorry, I'm getting upset.
Um...
It would just be like
they're just there
and it would be like
being little Minty again.
And I just want to...
..sit out and look at the house
and remember,
remember the magic,
bring a bit back.
I think this is going to be a lovely
project for us both to work on.
Thank you. I can't wait.
I'm so excited.
See you soon. Thanks a lot.
Bye! Bye, house.
WILL CHUCKLES
Who doesn't want magic
in their life?
It would just be amazing.
I think we lose that sense of
wonder, the older we get, don't we?
My mum and dad were both expert
at making things magical
when I was younger, and I think
getting it fixed would
bring them back a little bit.
It would just be like they were
just saying "hi" again.
We've got our work cut out for us
here, I think.
The paint is going to obviously
need completely overhauling.
You just can't see any of
the detail.
What are your thoughts on this wood?
If I was a builder,
I'd be rubbing my hands
because there's a lot of work
involved.
It looks really dry. Look.
Pieces just flaking
off really easily.
I'm going to remove anything
that's really badly damaged. Yeah.
Replace it with new wood.
Are you able to do that first?
Because you don't want to take
this to your bench first?
Is that what you're saying?
SHE LAUGHS
Right, well, I'll get started.
I'll leave you to it. Cheers!
This is such a lovely little house,
but there is so much
damaged wood here.
Everything is just crumbling away.
I've managed to keep a few
of the original beams here,
but there's so much that needs
to be replaced.
Unfortunately, nothing here
is symmetrical or straight.
Every single piece of wood
needs to be tailor-made,
so I'm going to trace around
the outline of the missing pieces
and I can get this cut out
into new pieces of wood.
As Will begins his big overhaul
of the tiny house,
outside, a new arrival.
Luigi Chibori from Llanelli in
Wales is hoping bright spark
Mark Stuckey can bring a treasured
family favourite back to life.
Hello. Hello. How are you doing?
Very good, thank you.
Now that is a beautiful...
It is a radio, isn't it? Correct.
Yes, it's a Super Valve
Ferranti radio. Right.
It's been in my possession,
passed down for me,
from my father, Giuseppe.
My mother was Maria.
Both Italians. Right. When my father
came into Wales as a prisoner of war
and he was made to work on the land.
So who captured your father
as a prisoner of war? English.
Is that what they did? Yeah. Yeah.
He came over, latter
part of '42, '43.
Well, I didn't know that the
British had prisoners, as well.
Yeah, captured... Yeah, a load of
the POWs. Yeah. Loads.
The war finished,
he then went back to Naples,
but because the depression was
worse out there, he then came back
to Wales, to the land
he was working on,
but he was actually employed
as a labourer then -
and part of his payment,
he was given this particular radio.
And has this been in the
family house ever since then?
Ever since then, yeah.
And passed to me from '88, '89.
And has it been
working...30 years ago?
The last time I'm aware was 1971
and that's in the kitchen
on the right-hand side
and it was functioning then.
OK, so why do you want to get
it repaired now?
It used to be the hub
for us as a family.
We didn't have much -
didn't have a TV, etc,
not even black-and-white,
so it's something I was brought
up with - one, to learn...
Yeah. ..nursery rhymes,
listening to certain programmes,
like Listen With Mother. Yeah.
My father used to
listen to The Archers.
We'd all be round the coal fire,
listening to the radio.
HE CHUCKLES
Good memories? Tremendous.
You don't forget things like that,
do you? No, you don't. Not at all.
It's certainly put an impression
on you, hasn't it? Oh, most...
Yeah. I think maybe I would have
had a more difficult road ahead
of me in life because
I'm with two Italian parents -
we had to teach ourselves
a lot of the language.
So it was a learning curve.
Having the radio, as well,
would help us.
My father used to say to me... Some
people say you are what you are.
My father used to say to me,
"No, Luigi you'll be
what you want to be."
And that's what I never forget.
Yeah.
And this is the only thing I've got
left of memories of my father,
who influenced me so much in life.
It's my prized possession, this.
Yeah, I see that.
All I can say to you is thank
you for bringing this in.
Hopefully, Mark's going to be able
to get this working again.
Whatever you can do will be most
appreciated. Thank you both so much.
You take care now. Bye. Bye-bye.
Nice to have met you.
The memory I have of the radio is,
it was all about us as a family,
and caring for each other.
For me, it's a very big deal to us,
because we didn't have much money
then and we were grateful for
what we had, and the influence
that's through the radio
to help each other.
It will bring back
priceless memories.
This is definitely Art Deco.
Cinemas of the period
would have had that same style
on the outer building,
Bakelite is an early form
of plastic.
It was a cheap alternative
to cabinets, wood.
The first thing I need to do is
effectively get the chassis out,
have a look, inspect it,
see what may possibly have
deteriorated over age.
Obviously, Luigi, you can tell,
you know, this means so much to him
and his family. For him to be able
to hear this come back to life
again, to see that reaction,
it's exciting times,
but daunting, as well.
It's not an easy job.
It's not an easy job for Will,
either, replacing most of the wooden
beams on the derelict fairy house.
That fits!
Lovely.
There's some excess adhesive
around the edge, but I'm going to
wipe that off. I've made sure
I've got enough on there that no
water can really get into
those nooks and crannies.
I've also used cedarwood,
which is fantastic
for outdoors and constructions.
The longer pieces fill in quite
well. It's all of these curved
pieces which are quite hard
to get right.
I kind of offer it up, and any part
that's rubbing against the concrete,
I know that I need to sand it away.
So I can see it at the top here,
it's slightly catching. I'm going
to mark that with a pencil,
and then I'll know that
I need to sand the area.
That's a really nice fit there.
Once I've replaced the last few
pieces, I can then give it a light
sand, and stain them that really
nice black colour.
As soon as that's dried,
over to Kirsten.
Will has done the most incredible
job on Minty's fairy house.
There's quite a lot of filling work.
There's big chunks of the concrete
that have fallen away,
and then I've got to tackle
the colour scheme
of the house and repainting.
It would be nice to give it some
of that...that magic quality again.
The cleaning is now completed.
The next stage here is to make
a start on filling all the areas
that are missing.
Filling all these tiny
holes and cracks
is really vital, so that the water
can run smoothly off the roof,
as it would in a normal house,
but also protecting all that lovely
woodwork that Will has done
on the actual body
of the house, too.
There's these quite large areas
where the roof tiles are
missing, and I'm using an epoxy
putty, which is pretty much
self-supporting,
and I also need to put some
of these tile details
into the putty, as well.
It's quite fun doing something
like this because normally I work
with quite sort of small, fiddly,
ornate things, and just makes
a really nice change.
This is where the real
transformation of
Minty's fairy house takes place.
I've moved on from filling
and texturing the missing panel
sections in the house and the roof,
and I'm now starting to do
the paintwork.
I've got a photograph
from Minty's family,
which shows the rough colours
that the fairy house had.
This stage really is the fun stage,
really seeing the fairy house
transformed back into a magical home
that, hopefully, some fairies
might come and inhabit.
While Kirsten employs her most
delicate of touches on the tidy
fairy house, metal worker
Dominic Chinea has a rather more
hefty challenge on his hands.
Come on, Dom!
You're not pushing! I'm pushing!
THEY LAUGH
Go on, that's it, that's it.
Go on, spin it round.
Come on, come on, Dom. Come on.
Here, there you go. Brilliant.
Marie Heemsom, from East Sussex,
is hoping Dom has the muscle
to fix her prized possession.
Hello. Hello, there. How are you?
I'm very well, thank you.
So this HEAVY strength
machine is yours, then?
It is! Tell us how you got this.
Well, this is inherited from my late
husband, Robert, and his first
association with the machine
was back in the '50s.
He used to go out cycling
with his father, and they stopped
at a cafe which had a whole array of
penny machines. Oh, really?!
That's cool. And when he was at art
school in the '70s, he got
the opportunity, when he heard they
were up for sale, to buy them.
So he got this machine
and a football machine.
Aw, that's super cool! That's
amazing, isn't it? All right, innit?
Do you know why? He just loved it.
He loved the shape of it,
he liked the whole idea of it. Yeah.
It wasn't in great repair
when he took
it on, and he repaired it. Yeah.
He had a mantra in life, which was,
if anybody could do it,
he could do it himself. Yeah.
And he was just a very talented man,
in both restoration
and artistically,
and sadly, I'm afraid, that since
he's died, I've taken my eye
off the ball a bit and it's fallen
into disrepair, really.
Understandable. When you lost your
husband, it must have been a really,
really tough time. We were married
for 15 years, and then he had
pancreatic cancer,
so he'd been ill for ten months.
It was a very sudden demise
and a very traumatic
end, really, in lots of ways.
Sorry. Sorry to hear that.
So, I had twins in 1997. OK.
And so he died just as they had
their tenth birthday, really.
That must have been tough.
Yes, it was...
It was a tough time.
But we remember him, really, with
just fondness and affection,
and this gives them a link
because, you know, their memories
are diminishing. Yeah.
He's been not part of their life
for a longer part of their lives
than he was part of it.
So, you know, I think they can feel
part of his personality
through the belongings that he had.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, when was the last time
you remember this working?
Maybe about ten years ago... OK.
..is the last time I can actually
remember it working well. Right.
So what would you like Dom to do
to this? First and foremost,
to preserve what we've got of it.
I certainly would like to see
the face, and that to be made
weatherproof again, so that it could
stand outside again,
and just brought back to life,
really, to be honest.
Was it always black, or has
it been a different...? No.
Did Robert paint it? He did.
OK, this colour? The colour before
was, it was a burgundy colour.
OK. But I would like to give
you the licence to do whatever
you... Really? ..thought most
appropriate, really. Brilliant.
I think that's... Eh? Yeah!
That's music to his ears! Oh-ho-ho!
It won't be shocking pink and,
like...
THEY LAUGH
I think it's beautiful.
Got to get this working.
Thank you, Marie, for bringing this
in. Dom is over the moon. Yeah.
I've never seen him smile
like this, ever!
This is... This is a good one.
It's a good one. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Lovely to meet
you. And you. Thank you. Bye-bye.
You take care now. See you later.
I think Rob's personality is rooted
in that machine, you know, he loved
to restore things
which were slightly unusual.
I think one of the ways
in which the children are able
to remember their father
is through the possessions
that he had, because it reflects
his personality.
And I know for certain that he would
be thrilled at the idea
of Dom restoring the machine.
Rob sounds exactly like you. I know.
Unbelievable. It's quite strange,
isn't it? I literally felt like
someone was explaining me.
But, yeah, isn't it incredible?
So, what have you got to do
to it, then?
My main concern is that all the
mechanism for the actual...
This, I mean, I'm not that strong,
but I hoped that that would move
a little bit! Yeah, yeah. I need to
get into the mechanism. Right.
So it's going to have to come apart.
What are you going to do
about the paint? The honest answer
is, I don't know at the moment.
I really need the machine to guide
me. Whatever colour it ends up...
Yeah. ..I know it's going
to look amazing.
And if we get it working, have a
little competition in here,
won't we? I haven't got a chance
against you. Come on!
Course you have! I bet you'll
rig it! You'll fix it.
I can't lift it and then you'll be
able to lift it.
All right. Let's get a trolley
and get this over to your area.
Brilliant. OK?
Here we go.
Down we go. Whoo!
I do honestly feel very, very
privileged to be able to work
on something like this.
It's been sitting exposed
to the elements for a long time.
It's all really seized up and rusty,
so the only way to deal
with that is to strip it right back,
clean every single component,
replace what I need to,
and get it working again.
Come on.
Yes!
OK.
So, the way this mechanism works
is really quite simple.
There's going to be a spring inside
that upright, by the handle,
and that's what gives
you the resistance.
Then there's a series of levers
and arms and pivot points
that then turn that movement
of you pulling up through here,
transfers it down there, and it
joins on to that rod that goes
through the whole body,
and then that movement of that
pushing up is what then turns
the dial and gives you your readout
of how strong you are and how big
your muscles are.
Right...
Yes. Yes!
There we go.
Having completed his dismantle
of the vintage Bakelite radio,
Mark is now delving into
its inner workings.
I've cleaned up the chassis.
It was pretty dirty,
as you can imagine.
There are numerous components
which I've got to replace.
This is a capacitor.
I'll put it on an insulation
tester, which puts a couple
of hundred volts on.
And, yeah, that's completely
flatlined, which means it's dead.
It's a short circuit. So we're going
to replace that with its modern
counterpart, which is this
rather smaller item.
It's a higher voltage, it's more
reliable, and it will last, equally,
for over 80 more years.
One down and probably
about another dozen to go.
I've replaced all the usual
suspect components.
I've now applied voltage
to it for the first time
in 40-plus years.
Everything started to come up,
looked very promising.
Then...a disaster -
everything started going wrong.
There is an intermediary
transformer that's gone...
It's literally gone pop.
We have coils which help to amplify.
They've collapsed.
And just to finalise and finish
it with a three-card trick,
the oscillator section
has gone down, as well.
So it feels like bashing
your head against something
because it's just all horribly
gone wrong.
We're at the stage now
where we need a donor.
I'm talking to some other
colleagues of mine.
I'm looking around.
It's the only way now. There's
so many parts I will need to remove
off a good machine and then rebuild
this, section by section,
until I've got it
perfectly working again.
While he waits for a donor,
Mark is on the case.
I'm just using a metal polish.
With Bakelite,
you have to be a little bit
cautious because, Bakelite,
it has a small percentage
of asbestos.
When I'm doing something like this,
this is absolutely fine.
But if you was actually
trying to scrape away,
then you would have to be
a little bit more careful.
The good thing about it, though, -
by the time you have finished
polishing it up,
it will look gleaming again.
We have now located and found a
donor, and it is nearly identical.
What a relief.
It's like winning the lottery.
Both these radios were produced
around 1935, 1936, so that will fit
comfortably into Luigi's
Bakelite case.
But, of course, we've
still got an issue.
We've got to get this one
working, instead of this one.
We've still got one
fundamental problem -
that is this loudspeaker.
The coil in here has gone faulty.
The power supply, therefore,
will not function.
So what I've got to do now is fit
this series resistance in,
so it will then make the power
supply function.
That's it.
So, all I've got to do now
is to just temporarily wire up
this to the output
from the amplifier,
turn it on and see how well
it's going to work.
I'm now at full mains.
It's drawing current now.
Going up to 200mA.
RADIO STATIC
I'm trying to pick up
a radio station.
VOICE EMERGES THROUGH STATIC
There you go!
There you are.
Yes, it's working!
What a result! We're going
to have a happy Luigi.
I am so pleased.
So relieved.
What a lovely feeling.
In an effort to get the little model
house fit for fairies once again,
Kirsten's been working her magic.
The fairy house has just
been an absolute treat to work on.
I've got a little bit of detailing
to do on top of the roof, and that's
really just to stop it from
being one uniform colour.
What I want is a little bit
of shading, and I'm going to do
that just by using a stipple effect,
just to break up the surface.
My hope is that it transports
Minty back to that moment
when she was a child
with her parents again.
Minty's late mum and dad created
a magical world for her
as a little girl, and this house
was at the centre of it.
I've been thinking about my parents.
I think about them all the time,
but what's nice is this feels
very positive and a nice
way to think about them.
And I'm just hoping to revisit
the eight-year-old Minty,
feel like her again.
Hi. Hello. Hello! Hi! Hey.
How are you? Oh, I'm so excited
to see. Trying to look at you guys,
but I really just want to stare
at that right in front of me.
But, yeah, it's great to be back.
What are you hoping to see?
Oh, I'm hoping to see
a bit of magic, Will.
I've got a feeling there's something
really wonderful under that blanket.
I can't wait to see it.
Shall I do it? OK.
A little bit of fairy dust.
Oh...
SHE GASPS
Oh, God!
SHE LAUGHS
Oh, my God, look at it!
Oh, my God, the little chimney
pots and everything!
Look at the wood!
How have you done that?!
That's a house any fairy would
be pleased to live in, isn't it?
Oh, my heart is just racing.
I feel like I'm
seven years old again.
I can't believe what you've done.
That's nuts.
It's so cool.
My dad would love this,
he'd love it.
And my mum would just think
it was amazing.
I've just got the best reminder
of the most incredible parents.
Thank you.
It's just gorgeous.
Been an absolute pleasure.
Yeah, an absolute honour. Thank you.
Thank you, guys. You're awesome.
Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.
I think, whatever age you are,
once your parents are gone,
you always feel it, but...
..it's so nice to have something
so magical to remember them by.
I feel like I got a piece
of my mum and dad back.
Yeah, I really did.
The next hopeful visitor
is Jaishmin Shah from Stanmore.
She's carrying a well-travelled
piece of family history
for the attention of Louise Drover.
Hello, there. Hello.
Look at this.
There we go.
There we are.
This is lovely. Beautiful thing.
It belonged to my mum.
This, originally, is from India.
My mum got it in 1959.
Her dad took her and her siblings
on the equivalent of a pilgrimage
in a place called Palitana,
which is the holy place for Jains.
And when they went to do
this pilgrimage, my grandad
bought her this painting.
Now, I'm not too familiar
with...Jain...Jainism? Jainism.
Jainism. What is Jainism?
It's a religion or way of life.
If you're a Jain, you follow a way
of life which brings the least
amount of harm to other
living beings around you.
There are overlaps with Jainism
and Buddhism.
That's how my mum followed it.
Is your mother still alive?
No, she passed away in 2015.
So she got it in India.
Where did it go from there?
From India, it went to Uganda,
where she lived with my dad
and the extended family.
And there she had a room,
which was a temple.
It was placed there, framed,
and I think in my mum's mind, that's
where it would have stayed forever
until Idi Amin came into power
and he decided the Asians
are no longer welcome.
So, as part of that,
we had to leave.
And this painting, you know,
meant so much to my mum.
Yes. She wasn't going to leave it
behind. She took it out of the frame
and rolled it up in a sari,
and it was put in her one
suitcase that they could fill
and take with them. Really? Yes.
It must have been really frightening
for you, as children.
I do remember the part when we were
on the tarmac going to the plane,
cos my mum would always make me
hold her sari, and at one point
she was taken away.
I think they were just searching
anybody, if they had any jewellery
or anything valuable,
they would take it off,
and I was separated from my mum,
and that was quite traumatic.
We came to the United Kingdom
and we were in a refugee camp
for nine months.
Gosh. And this was with her
throughout.
Every now and then I would see
her just touching this.
And I think this gave her strength,
and I know it brought her comfort,
because wherever we lived, my mum
always made, like, a little temple
to herself, and invariably
they were always under the stairs -
the cupboard under the stairs.
I mean, she was tiny.
She was 4'9", so she could
stand under the stairs,
and this painting was always
there, wrapped up with... Safe.
..safe with her. Yeah. What exactly
would you like Louise
to do with the painting?
Just any improvements
would be appreciated.
Whatever you can do with it.
I think, if you see where it's
been rolled are the creases...
That's the key damage, isn't it?
It's lost all the gold
and the pigments
going across on those lines,
so that can certainly be improved.
And that is actually real gold on
there. Is it?! Is it?! It is, yes.
Really? Yes. Oh, wow! There's no
signs of tarnishing or anything.
And because it was so important -
it's a religious piece -
it would have always had the best
pigments and proper gold.
Oh, wow! So, yeah, that's
the reverence they gave these
religious items.
I don't think my mum knew that!
No? No! Wow, God!
I mean, my mum loved it
as it was, rolled up.
But, you know, I would really
like to sort of display
it in my house... Yeah, yeah.
..so we can see it. Thank you so
much for bringing this down.
It's absolutely beautiful. Can't
wait to get started. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Bye. Bye-bye.
When I look at the painting,
I just see my mum smiling at me.
It's been in our family for so long,
and it meant so much to my mum,
it gave her courage and strength,
and I want it, you know, to
hopefully give me half
the strength it gave her.
Now that it's out of the frame,
you can see these wonderful,
vibrant, fresh colours.
However, your eye's drawn to quite
a lot of cracking along
this creasing, quite a lot of loss
on the gold, quite a lot of pigment
loss, as well.
There's also a major tear,
actually, top and bottom.
Now I can see the painting
much more clearly,
it's a case of some light
surface cleaning,
it needs to be lined, and then
consolidating these cracked areas,
ready for retouching.
So I'm just starting the surface
clean. I can only really clean
in the areas where the pigment
is quite sound.
Considering it was rolled up
in a suitcase in a refugee camp,
it's amazing how much of it
is actually still present.
Outside, the cast-iron elements
of the test-your-strength machine
have been doing just that for Dom.
I've just taken off this sign,
and look at what I have discovered
underneath. This is absolute gold.
I mean, it's not, it's green.
The original paint, hidden
underneath the sign.
Now I've exposed it, I can see,
and I can get a perfect colour match
to repaint this whole machine
in this lovely pea-green colour.
It's brilliant. This all now can be
sent off to be sandblasted,
because I'm confident I know
what colour to paint it.
It is not good news for the dial.
Unfortunately,
it's deteriorated so badly.
It's actually a piece of paper
printed and stuck
to a piece of wood. So all I can
really do at this point is make a
whole new one. The good news is that
I've got enough detailed information
on this that I'm taking
measurements, I've taken a picture,
and I'm using all of this as
reference to redraw, as best
I can, all of this, then I can get
that printed and stick
it onto a new piece of wood.
I've got all of the pieces of the
try-your-strength machine back
from being sandblasted,
which is a brilliant process.
It's stripped them right
back to the bare metal
and all these surfaces
are primed and ready to paint.
All of these pieces on the bench
are the workings of the mechanism.
I've given everything here a
thorough good clean,
rebuilt a couple of parts,
everything's been painted,
it's all ready to assemble,
and I've got a terrifying
pile of tiny little screws.
So the sooner this gets put
back together, the better.
That is the mechanism complete.
You can sort of get an idea
of how it works.
That feels really good.
So nice to see this gleaming,
like it should be,
and everything working perfectly.
I can't wait to get
this in the machine now.
All right. I'll try not to break it
again, getting it in there.
That's it, perfect.
Oh, yes.
At the moment, I feel like I am
over a really big hurdle, getting
this machine working again,
but it's a lot more than just
a fairground machine to Marie.
This is going to be a beautiful
representation and memory
of her husband, Robert.
So, with that in mind, I've got now
a lot more of the jewellery to put
on - the nice sign on the front,
all the brass pieces - and really
get this thing looking its best.
This text down here -
"The improved strength-testing
machine company" -
I think it's brilliant.
These guys made this thing
in the first place.
I feel it's only right that they get
a little bit more detail.
So I'm just putting on some
gold size, which I've tinted
with a little bit of yellow paint,
over just the raised lettering...
..and then I'm going
to gold-leaf it.
It's been an extremely difficult
repair for Mark
on the 1930s Bakelite radio,
but the end is in sight.
We are now at the stage
where the chassis is going to go
into the radio.
Let's...do it bit by bit.
There we go. OK, I'm just going
to screw those back in.
Last thing to do
is to solder these up,
shorten these cables,
fit them on there.
Job's a good'un.
Right. That's it.
I'm really happy with that.
Electronically now, it's complete.
I've just got a few little
aesthetic touches to do,
finish off, and then after that,
I just can't wait to see
what Luigi thinks.
This radio played a vital part
in Luigi's post-war household,
providing a focal point for family
life and even teaching them English.
My Bakelite radio means so much,
just not to myself,
but to my two sisters.
We were brought up
around that radio.
So many good memories.
It will be like bringing back...
..family members back alive again.
So excited.
I couldn't even sleep last night.
Just wanted to get back.
Here he is. Hi.
How are you doing? Marvellous.
Absolutely marvellous. Excited!
Oh, bless you.
Don't know what to expect.
So this symbolises a lot to you,
doesn't it?
It's always been with us,
bringing the family together.
Oh, it just means so much to me.
Let's let him see it.
You do the honours. Ready?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Wow!
You've cleaned it up.
Un... Unbelievable.
Oh...
You've brought the family
back together.
That's nice to know.
That's all I can say. I'm amazed.
It's like brand-new.
I do not know the last time I saw
the Bakelite shine like this.
Oh, OK.
And now, can I turn it on?
The big test, yeah? Yeah.
CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
Oh, my God!
Amazed.
I'm trying to associate
the music now, aren't I?
How does that feel, to hear it
again? Oh, fantastic! Yeah?
Inside, I'm shaking.
So the whole family used to listen
to this, back in the day? Always.
Are you going to do that again?
Yeah.
My sisters have already
phoned me today. Yeah.
"As soon as you're out,
let us know if it's working,
"and when are we coming up
"so we can turn it on
and listen to it?"
We can get together.
So that will be a priority.
It'll be as if my mother and father
are there as well, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. That will reinstate
what happened 60, 70 years ago.
And, you know, thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
It's been a really lovely journey
to bring it back to life again
and to see the expression
on your face
and those memories coming back
into you. Unbelievable. Yeah.
Thank you so much. Thank you both.
All right, you take care. Bye.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Wow. Wow!
Absolutely, wow.
That's all I can say.
It's now bringing back
so many other memories, as well -
just not about the radio,
but how we lived,
what we did as a family...
We didn't have much,
and, without that,
we wouldn't have had anything.
It would have been hard
to communicate.
Now I know it's going
to be cherished
for many, many years to come.
Louise is calling upon her in-depth
knowledge and specialist toolkit
to rescue a fragile Indian painting.
Quite a lot of the gold
is lifting off.
I need to consolidate the pigments.
I'd quite often use a gelatine
to consolidate gold,
but to respect Jainism,
no animal products
should be near it.
So I'm actually going to use
a funori,
which is a seaweed product,
actually,
and just apply it to these areas
on the vacuum table.
The reason you use the vacuum table
is because it's a very controlled
method of consolidation.
It'll go through all those
cracking areas
and bring them together.
I just want to seal the losses.
It not only bonds it down
onto the surface,
but it also provides
a layer to retouch onto.
So this is a light sheet,
and it actually,
by placing it underneath,
you can just see quite how bad
these cracks and creases are.
So I've made a decision
to actually line it.
I'm going to line it
on Japanese tissue.
It's very forgiving
and it gives it extra support.
So I'm going to paste this up now.
And now the lining paper.
Now it's got the lining on,
I'm turning it over onto this
wooden board here,
just so that I can actually
drum it out.
It's called drumming out
cos, really, you're putting
it under a little bit of tension.
What happens when it dries is,
it just lightly shrinks.
This will actually pull out
all the memory of these deep creases
that have developed
since it's been rolled up
in a suitcase.
Then it's really just
left to dry in its own time.
Once it's done,
that should be lovely and flat
and ready for retouching.
All these pigments I'm using
are plant-based,
just to respect the philosophy
of Jainism.
We've got vermillion,
got a bit of yellow ochre, indigo.
The gold's quite interesting
because it has these very nice
raised areas.
In the West, we kind of
call this pastiglia.
So it's usually like a chalk layer.
However, looking at this closer,
it's almost a clay.
So it's just filling in all those
losses where all the bumps are.
And, yeah, it's really enjoyable,
actually.
I love this bit.
It all comes together.
It's fantastic.
So I'll just carry on
and just enjoy myself.
This area here just needs
some gold leaf adding.
It's 24 carat.
Fairly easy.
Just press through with your finger,
and we just take off the
loose parts afterwards.
Pick up this very soft
pony-hair brush.
Just tamp it down,
and any excess...
SHE BLOWS
..just blow it away.
There.
Dom is also on the home straight,
rebuilding the
carefully restored parts
of the test-your-strength machine.
You know what?
That dial is looking so good.
Yes! It fits perfectly.
It's been a really long road
for me, this.
But standing back now,
I'm just able to admire it, really.
And I'm just so chuffed.
I'm sure that Marie is going
to absolutely love it.
But I just really hope
that it's what Robert wanted.
I really hope that I've sort of
done him justice.
Last piece.
Ah! Look at that.
Love it.
This machine was the
prized plaything of Rob,
a loving family man
and a keen collector.
For his wife, Marie,
it's a connection to him
and the times they spent together.
This whole process has obviously
made my time with Rob more
memorable,
and the idea of taking
this machine home
and actually being able to
use it again
and have those family memories again
is very, very exciting.
Marie, hi. Hi, Dom.
It's so nice to see you again.
It's lovely to see you.
I'm so excited.
Are you? Yeah.
I'm excited, but I'm so nervous.
Are you? I really am. Yeah.
Do you know,
I'm a little nervous, too. Yes!
THEY LAUGH
Oh, I want to show you. Ready? Yeah.
Oh!
Goodness me. That is
truly, truly outstanding.
I... I'm blown away.
It is utterly outstanding.
I love it. I absolutely love it.
You couldn't have done me
more proud. Oh...
It's just so, so lovely.
Thank you. That really means a lot.
And I love the colour.
Actually, when I was taking it
apart, this is the original colour.
Well, that's really lovely to know.
It suits it.
I'm honestly relieved
that you like it. I really am.
But what do you think Rob
would think of it?
He would have loved it.
And the fact that you've
managed to get
all of the detail of
the wording along there
so precisely, and the dial,
I can't believe you did that.
Does it work? Do you want to have
a go? I don't know if I can...
The pennies are on the floor.
You're welcome.
All right. Let's have a go. You have
to give it a good old tug, but...
Oh...
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
It's 150. Oh, 150.
THEY LAUGH
Very good!
Very good. My goodness.
Wow. I don't even know what to say,
beyond it's just truly fantastic.
I'm so chuffed. Thank you. You're
welcome. Really, thank you.
Honestly, you're so welcome.
Now, I really hope you don't mind,
but everyone inside has been
dying to have a go.
Do you mind if I call them out?
Absolutely not. Go get them!
Brilliant.
Guys, come outside a second.
Hope you're ready, been doing your
stretches. Oh, yes! Yeah!
We're good to go.
Everyone's limbered up.
Everyone's ready. Yes. Yes!
I'm going. Go on! Woo!
Go, girl.
Right, come on! Woo!
Come on, Amanda!
Right, here we go. Here we go.
Give it some welly.
Oh...
Oh... ..50!
SHE GROANS
Oh, 180, was that? 180, 190?
Go, Julie!
Here we go.
Come on, Julie! Come on.
Bit more, bit more! There she goes.
Oh... 210!
Well done!
Where did that come from,
at the end? I don't know!
Go on, Steve. Show us how it's done!
Steve, you're in trouble now!
Go on, Steve! 300!
I'm really nervous now! 300!
Go, Steve, go!
That was quick. What did it go up
to? That was too quick!
240. Go on, then, Dom.
Oh, 260. 260.
What did you get, Steve? 240.
Oh, well... Well done. Thank you.
Thank you. Our champion.
The winner!
Marie, thank you so much
for letting us all have a go.
It's been really good fun.
Thank you very much indeed.
It's been an absolute pleasure,
and I'm just so delighted with this.
Thank you. Thank you.
Bye-bye. Thank you.
Lovely to meet you. Bye, Marie.
It really was just quite
a magical moment, actually,
and I see this as a bit of a legacy.
What we've done is to bring his...
..a little bit of his memory
back to life again,
and Rob would have undoubtedly
been looking
and thinking, "This is wonderful."
Louise has been painstakingly
restoring a beautiful picture
that travelled across continents,
and she's finishing
with a bespoke frame.
We call these fillets.
They're just spaces, really.
They hold the artwork away
from the glazing.
It's like having an air gap
around the artwork,
just to make sure they
don't touch the glass.
Pop it in.
Let's see how that goes.
Oh, it looks nice in this frame.
It's not far off.
I think these beads in the middle
are touching
cos they're quite large,
but we're nearly there.
And not long until Jaishmin
can see it all reframed.
For Jaishmin's mother,
fleeing political upheaval in Uganda
to get her family to safety,
this picture was a talisman
that made her feel
safe and protected
and connected her to home.
It's been there all my life,
and it brought my mum a lot of joy,
strength, contentment,
and I took it for granted.
And after she's passed away,
I would like to see if it can give
me the strength that it gave her.
Hello. Hello. Hi, Jaishmin.
Hi. Nice to see you again.
Yes, nice to be back again.
Nervous, though. Are you?
Just nervous...
..to see what it's like.
And I only know the painting
as I've seen it -
crushed and cracked
and in a sorry state. Yes.
So, ready to have a look? Yeah.
Oh, my...
..gosh!
That's beautiful.
SHE INHALES
Sorry.
Oh...
That is just lovely.
That's beyond what I expected.
I feel like my mum's here.
I really do feel she's...
..here.
And I'm just so happy.
They're happy tears, honestly. Good.
I can see why my mum fell in love
with it. I really can.
It's just so beautiful.
And the colours, they...
They look brighter.
It's just amazing.
And I imagine I'm just
touching on the surface
of what it must
have meant to my mum.
Thank you. You're very welcome.
It's been fantastic to work on.
Absolutely beautiful.
Thanks a lot for coming down.
I'll grab the door for you. Right.
When I first saw the painting,
I honestly thought,
this is like a surreal moment.
It... I'm dreaming just how
fabulous the painting looks.
I think I felt a glimmer
of what my mum must have felt
the first time she set her eyes
on that painting.
Join us next time as all
creatures great and small...
All right. Let's save Piglet's
bacon.
Oh!
..are brought back to life...
Look at him!
Thank you so much.
..in The Repair Shop.
precious but faded treasures...
There's an awful lot of work
to do here.
Things are definitely going
to have to get worse
before they get better.
..are returned
to their former glory. Look at that!
Furniture restorer Jay Blades...
Bringing history back to life
is what makes The Repair Shop
so special.
..and a dream team
of expert craftspeople...
Solid as a rock.
It's actually quite miraculous,
to be honest!
..coming together
to work their magic...
Look at that! Tailor-made.
Just got to keep calm and carry on.
OK, here we go.
It's going to look great.
..employing heritage craft skills,
passed down the generations...
This is how it was, so this
is how it will be again.
..preserving irreplaceable
heirlooms...
Some object can have so much
emotional attachment to the family -
that's what pushes me
to want to get it right.
..the team will restore the items...
Oh!
..the memories... So that's the link
between you and your grandad...
And now my son. ..and unlock
the stories that they hold.
I'm just blown away!
I'm flying!
In The Repair Shop today,
a radio dating from the
Great Depression gets a boost.
It's exciting times,
but daunting, as well.
Buried treasure for Dom...
Look at what I have discovered
underneath - the original paint,
hidden underneath the sign...
..on an antique fairground game.
I'm confident I know what colour
to paint it.
And more colour restoration
as Louise applies
her specialist tricks of the trade
on a poorly painting.
I'm actually going to use the
funori, which is a seaweed product,
actually, and it'll go through
all those cracking areas
and bring them together.
Beneath the beams, Will Kirk
and Kirsten Ramsay are examining
the first job of the day.
What is this, Tudor? Elizabethan?
HE LAUGHS
Don't know what it is!
It's something that holds
very dear memories
for Minty Barlow from Bolton.
Hi. Hi, there. Hi, hello.
Oh, there it is.
What is this?
So this is a model village house
from Cleethorpes seafront.
So that's random, i'n't it?
THEY LAUGH
Cleethorpes had this model village
around the '50s and '60s.
It was a tourist attraction.
My parents got wind
it was being demolished,
I think in the '70s,
and my mum sent my dad
on kind of a mission to
try and procure a couple!
I don't know if he bribed, bought...
But we ended up with two
in our back garden in Grimsby
that I grew up with.
Why these? I mean, do they mean
quite a lot to your parents?
I think, at the time, my parents
just thought they'd be really cool
things to have, but they became
a bit more than that as I grew up,
I guess.
So my dad was a real character,
kind of a hybrid of Basil Fawlty
and Captain Mainwaring!
He was a real eccentric,
but he had this sense of magic.
He convinced me that
fairies lived here, and my memory
is that this maybe had little
chimney pots on because he could...
He made them smoke. Really? Aw!
Yeah, I think he soaked
something in cotton wool...
It was the '80s, it was probably
something really toxic!
But, yeah, I just believed that,
100%, this was the fairy house
in the garden and the fairies
were home
if the chimney smoked.
It was just magic. So sweet. Wow.
Sounds like your parents
were really special people
and your childhood must
have been amazing.
I mean, they were off their rockers!
They were a real pair of characters
but, yeah, there
was never a dull moment
growing up in Grimsby with them.
I went on to move to Bolton
and had my daughter,
11 years ago - Grace -
and, sadly, my mum passed away
just after she was born.
She was only eight weeks old.
And my dad, I lost
about four years ago...
..very suddenly,
so to have this restored,
it would bring a bit
of the magic back...
And my daughter thought
the exact same thing -
she thought fairies
lived there, too.
I don't think fairies would move
in how it is right now.
I think they'd be quite
disgusted with how...
It looks like they moved
out a long time ago!
More like trolls are squatting -
isn't it? -
tan fairies are living there.
Why have you decided
to have this repaired now?
Over the last few years, as Grace
is getting older and YouTubers
are taking over fairies and things
like that, it's kind of more for me,
a bit selfishly, I guess.
I miss my parents dreadfully.
It's the best thing in the world,
having a daughter,
but sometimes I just really
miss being one.
And I think, to have it looking
nice again in the garden...
Really sorry, I'm getting upset.
Um...
It would just be like
they're just there
and it would be like
being little Minty again.
And I just want to...
..sit out and look at the house
and remember,
remember the magic,
bring a bit back.
I think this is going to be a lovely
project for us both to work on.
Thank you. I can't wait.
I'm so excited.
See you soon. Thanks a lot.
Bye! Bye, house.
WILL CHUCKLES
Who doesn't want magic
in their life?
It would just be amazing.
I think we lose that sense of
wonder, the older we get, don't we?
My mum and dad were both expert
at making things magical
when I was younger, and I think
getting it fixed would
bring them back a little bit.
It would just be like they were
just saying "hi" again.
We've got our work cut out for us
here, I think.
The paint is going to obviously
need completely overhauling.
You just can't see any of
the detail.
What are your thoughts on this wood?
If I was a builder,
I'd be rubbing my hands
because there's a lot of work
involved.
It looks really dry. Look.
Pieces just flaking
off really easily.
I'm going to remove anything
that's really badly damaged. Yeah.
Replace it with new wood.
Are you able to do that first?
Because you don't want to take
this to your bench first?
Is that what you're saying?
SHE LAUGHS
Right, well, I'll get started.
I'll leave you to it. Cheers!
This is such a lovely little house,
but there is so much
damaged wood here.
Everything is just crumbling away.
I've managed to keep a few
of the original beams here,
but there's so much that needs
to be replaced.
Unfortunately, nothing here
is symmetrical or straight.
Every single piece of wood
needs to be tailor-made,
so I'm going to trace around
the outline of the missing pieces
and I can get this cut out
into new pieces of wood.
As Will begins his big overhaul
of the tiny house,
outside, a new arrival.
Luigi Chibori from Llanelli in
Wales is hoping bright spark
Mark Stuckey can bring a treasured
family favourite back to life.
Hello. Hello. How are you doing?
Very good, thank you.
Now that is a beautiful...
It is a radio, isn't it? Correct.
Yes, it's a Super Valve
Ferranti radio. Right.
It's been in my possession,
passed down for me,
from my father, Giuseppe.
My mother was Maria.
Both Italians. Right. When my father
came into Wales as a prisoner of war
and he was made to work on the land.
So who captured your father
as a prisoner of war? English.
Is that what they did? Yeah. Yeah.
He came over, latter
part of '42, '43.
Well, I didn't know that the
British had prisoners, as well.
Yeah, captured... Yeah, a load of
the POWs. Yeah. Loads.
The war finished,
he then went back to Naples,
but because the depression was
worse out there, he then came back
to Wales, to the land
he was working on,
but he was actually employed
as a labourer then -
and part of his payment,
he was given this particular radio.
And has this been in the
family house ever since then?
Ever since then, yeah.
And passed to me from '88, '89.
And has it been
working...30 years ago?
The last time I'm aware was 1971
and that's in the kitchen
on the right-hand side
and it was functioning then.
OK, so why do you want to get
it repaired now?
It used to be the hub
for us as a family.
We didn't have much -
didn't have a TV, etc,
not even black-and-white,
so it's something I was brought
up with - one, to learn...
Yeah. ..nursery rhymes,
listening to certain programmes,
like Listen With Mother. Yeah.
My father used to
listen to The Archers.
We'd all be round the coal fire,
listening to the radio.
HE CHUCKLES
Good memories? Tremendous.
You don't forget things like that,
do you? No, you don't. Not at all.
It's certainly put an impression
on you, hasn't it? Oh, most...
Yeah. I think maybe I would have
had a more difficult road ahead
of me in life because
I'm with two Italian parents -
we had to teach ourselves
a lot of the language.
So it was a learning curve.
Having the radio, as well,
would help us.
My father used to say to me... Some
people say you are what you are.
My father used to say to me,
"No, Luigi you'll be
what you want to be."
And that's what I never forget.
Yeah.
And this is the only thing I've got
left of memories of my father,
who influenced me so much in life.
It's my prized possession, this.
Yeah, I see that.
All I can say to you is thank
you for bringing this in.
Hopefully, Mark's going to be able
to get this working again.
Whatever you can do will be most
appreciated. Thank you both so much.
You take care now. Bye. Bye-bye.
Nice to have met you.
The memory I have of the radio is,
it was all about us as a family,
and caring for each other.
For me, it's a very big deal to us,
because we didn't have much money
then and we were grateful for
what we had, and the influence
that's through the radio
to help each other.
It will bring back
priceless memories.
This is definitely Art Deco.
Cinemas of the period
would have had that same style
on the outer building,
Bakelite is an early form
of plastic.
It was a cheap alternative
to cabinets, wood.
The first thing I need to do is
effectively get the chassis out,
have a look, inspect it,
see what may possibly have
deteriorated over age.
Obviously, Luigi, you can tell,
you know, this means so much to him
and his family. For him to be able
to hear this come back to life
again, to see that reaction,
it's exciting times,
but daunting, as well.
It's not an easy job.
It's not an easy job for Will,
either, replacing most of the wooden
beams on the derelict fairy house.
That fits!
Lovely.
There's some excess adhesive
around the edge, but I'm going to
wipe that off. I've made sure
I've got enough on there that no
water can really get into
those nooks and crannies.
I've also used cedarwood,
which is fantastic
for outdoors and constructions.
The longer pieces fill in quite
well. It's all of these curved
pieces which are quite hard
to get right.
I kind of offer it up, and any part
that's rubbing against the concrete,
I know that I need to sand it away.
So I can see it at the top here,
it's slightly catching. I'm going
to mark that with a pencil,
and then I'll know that
I need to sand the area.
That's a really nice fit there.
Once I've replaced the last few
pieces, I can then give it a light
sand, and stain them that really
nice black colour.
As soon as that's dried,
over to Kirsten.
Will has done the most incredible
job on Minty's fairy house.
There's quite a lot of filling work.
There's big chunks of the concrete
that have fallen away,
and then I've got to tackle
the colour scheme
of the house and repainting.
It would be nice to give it some
of that...that magic quality again.
The cleaning is now completed.
The next stage here is to make
a start on filling all the areas
that are missing.
Filling all these tiny
holes and cracks
is really vital, so that the water
can run smoothly off the roof,
as it would in a normal house,
but also protecting all that lovely
woodwork that Will has done
on the actual body
of the house, too.
There's these quite large areas
where the roof tiles are
missing, and I'm using an epoxy
putty, which is pretty much
self-supporting,
and I also need to put some
of these tile details
into the putty, as well.
It's quite fun doing something
like this because normally I work
with quite sort of small, fiddly,
ornate things, and just makes
a really nice change.
This is where the real
transformation of
Minty's fairy house takes place.
I've moved on from filling
and texturing the missing panel
sections in the house and the roof,
and I'm now starting to do
the paintwork.
I've got a photograph
from Minty's family,
which shows the rough colours
that the fairy house had.
This stage really is the fun stage,
really seeing the fairy house
transformed back into a magical home
that, hopefully, some fairies
might come and inhabit.
While Kirsten employs her most
delicate of touches on the tidy
fairy house, metal worker
Dominic Chinea has a rather more
hefty challenge on his hands.
Come on, Dom!
You're not pushing! I'm pushing!
THEY LAUGH
Go on, that's it, that's it.
Go on, spin it round.
Come on, come on, Dom. Come on.
Here, there you go. Brilliant.
Marie Heemsom, from East Sussex,
is hoping Dom has the muscle
to fix her prized possession.
Hello. Hello, there. How are you?
I'm very well, thank you.
So this HEAVY strength
machine is yours, then?
It is! Tell us how you got this.
Well, this is inherited from my late
husband, Robert, and his first
association with the machine
was back in the '50s.
He used to go out cycling
with his father, and they stopped
at a cafe which had a whole array of
penny machines. Oh, really?!
That's cool. And when he was at art
school in the '70s, he got
the opportunity, when he heard they
were up for sale, to buy them.
So he got this machine
and a football machine.
Aw, that's super cool! That's
amazing, isn't it? All right, innit?
Do you know why? He just loved it.
He loved the shape of it,
he liked the whole idea of it. Yeah.
It wasn't in great repair
when he took
it on, and he repaired it. Yeah.
He had a mantra in life, which was,
if anybody could do it,
he could do it himself. Yeah.
And he was just a very talented man,
in both restoration
and artistically,
and sadly, I'm afraid, that since
he's died, I've taken my eye
off the ball a bit and it's fallen
into disrepair, really.
Understandable. When you lost your
husband, it must have been a really,
really tough time. We were married
for 15 years, and then he had
pancreatic cancer,
so he'd been ill for ten months.
It was a very sudden demise
and a very traumatic
end, really, in lots of ways.
Sorry. Sorry to hear that.
So, I had twins in 1997. OK.
And so he died just as they had
their tenth birthday, really.
That must have been tough.
Yes, it was...
It was a tough time.
But we remember him, really, with
just fondness and affection,
and this gives them a link
because, you know, their memories
are diminishing. Yeah.
He's been not part of their life
for a longer part of their lives
than he was part of it.
So, you know, I think they can feel
part of his personality
through the belongings that he had.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, when was the last time
you remember this working?
Maybe about ten years ago... OK.
..is the last time I can actually
remember it working well. Right.
So what would you like Dom to do
to this? First and foremost,
to preserve what we've got of it.
I certainly would like to see
the face, and that to be made
weatherproof again, so that it could
stand outside again,
and just brought back to life,
really, to be honest.
Was it always black, or has
it been a different...? No.
Did Robert paint it? He did.
OK, this colour? The colour before
was, it was a burgundy colour.
OK. But I would like to give
you the licence to do whatever
you... Really? ..thought most
appropriate, really. Brilliant.
I think that's... Eh? Yeah!
That's music to his ears! Oh-ho-ho!
It won't be shocking pink and,
like...
THEY LAUGH
I think it's beautiful.
Got to get this working.
Thank you, Marie, for bringing this
in. Dom is over the moon. Yeah.
I've never seen him smile
like this, ever!
This is... This is a good one.
It's a good one. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Lovely to meet
you. And you. Thank you. Bye-bye.
You take care now. See you later.
I think Rob's personality is rooted
in that machine, you know, he loved
to restore things
which were slightly unusual.
I think one of the ways
in which the children are able
to remember their father
is through the possessions
that he had, because it reflects
his personality.
And I know for certain that he would
be thrilled at the idea
of Dom restoring the machine.
Rob sounds exactly like you. I know.
Unbelievable. It's quite strange,
isn't it? I literally felt like
someone was explaining me.
But, yeah, isn't it incredible?
So, what have you got to do
to it, then?
My main concern is that all the
mechanism for the actual...
This, I mean, I'm not that strong,
but I hoped that that would move
a little bit! Yeah, yeah. I need to
get into the mechanism. Right.
So it's going to have to come apart.
What are you going to do
about the paint? The honest answer
is, I don't know at the moment.
I really need the machine to guide
me. Whatever colour it ends up...
Yeah. ..I know it's going
to look amazing.
And if we get it working, have a
little competition in here,
won't we? I haven't got a chance
against you. Come on!
Course you have! I bet you'll
rig it! You'll fix it.
I can't lift it and then you'll be
able to lift it.
All right. Let's get a trolley
and get this over to your area.
Brilliant. OK?
Here we go.
Down we go. Whoo!
I do honestly feel very, very
privileged to be able to work
on something like this.
It's been sitting exposed
to the elements for a long time.
It's all really seized up and rusty,
so the only way to deal
with that is to strip it right back,
clean every single component,
replace what I need to,
and get it working again.
Come on.
Yes!
OK.
So, the way this mechanism works
is really quite simple.
There's going to be a spring inside
that upright, by the handle,
and that's what gives
you the resistance.
Then there's a series of levers
and arms and pivot points
that then turn that movement
of you pulling up through here,
transfers it down there, and it
joins on to that rod that goes
through the whole body,
and then that movement of that
pushing up is what then turns
the dial and gives you your readout
of how strong you are and how big
your muscles are.
Right...
Yes. Yes!
There we go.
Having completed his dismantle
of the vintage Bakelite radio,
Mark is now delving into
its inner workings.
I've cleaned up the chassis.
It was pretty dirty,
as you can imagine.
There are numerous components
which I've got to replace.
This is a capacitor.
I'll put it on an insulation
tester, which puts a couple
of hundred volts on.
And, yeah, that's completely
flatlined, which means it's dead.
It's a short circuit. So we're going
to replace that with its modern
counterpart, which is this
rather smaller item.
It's a higher voltage, it's more
reliable, and it will last, equally,
for over 80 more years.
One down and probably
about another dozen to go.
I've replaced all the usual
suspect components.
I've now applied voltage
to it for the first time
in 40-plus years.
Everything started to come up,
looked very promising.
Then...a disaster -
everything started going wrong.
There is an intermediary
transformer that's gone...
It's literally gone pop.
We have coils which help to amplify.
They've collapsed.
And just to finalise and finish
it with a three-card trick,
the oscillator section
has gone down, as well.
So it feels like bashing
your head against something
because it's just all horribly
gone wrong.
We're at the stage now
where we need a donor.
I'm talking to some other
colleagues of mine.
I'm looking around.
It's the only way now. There's
so many parts I will need to remove
off a good machine and then rebuild
this, section by section,
until I've got it
perfectly working again.
While he waits for a donor,
Mark is on the case.
I'm just using a metal polish.
With Bakelite,
you have to be a little bit
cautious because, Bakelite,
it has a small percentage
of asbestos.
When I'm doing something like this,
this is absolutely fine.
But if you was actually
trying to scrape away,
then you would have to be
a little bit more careful.
The good thing about it, though, -
by the time you have finished
polishing it up,
it will look gleaming again.
We have now located and found a
donor, and it is nearly identical.
What a relief.
It's like winning the lottery.
Both these radios were produced
around 1935, 1936, so that will fit
comfortably into Luigi's
Bakelite case.
But, of course, we've
still got an issue.
We've got to get this one
working, instead of this one.
We've still got one
fundamental problem -
that is this loudspeaker.
The coil in here has gone faulty.
The power supply, therefore,
will not function.
So what I've got to do now is fit
this series resistance in,
so it will then make the power
supply function.
That's it.
So, all I've got to do now
is to just temporarily wire up
this to the output
from the amplifier,
turn it on and see how well
it's going to work.
I'm now at full mains.
It's drawing current now.
Going up to 200mA.
RADIO STATIC
I'm trying to pick up
a radio station.
VOICE EMERGES THROUGH STATIC
There you go!
There you are.
Yes, it's working!
What a result! We're going
to have a happy Luigi.
I am so pleased.
So relieved.
What a lovely feeling.
In an effort to get the little model
house fit for fairies once again,
Kirsten's been working her magic.
The fairy house has just
been an absolute treat to work on.
I've got a little bit of detailing
to do on top of the roof, and that's
really just to stop it from
being one uniform colour.
What I want is a little bit
of shading, and I'm going to do
that just by using a stipple effect,
just to break up the surface.
My hope is that it transports
Minty back to that moment
when she was a child
with her parents again.
Minty's late mum and dad created
a magical world for her
as a little girl, and this house
was at the centre of it.
I've been thinking about my parents.
I think about them all the time,
but what's nice is this feels
very positive and a nice
way to think about them.
And I'm just hoping to revisit
the eight-year-old Minty,
feel like her again.
Hi. Hello. Hello! Hi! Hey.
How are you? Oh, I'm so excited
to see. Trying to look at you guys,
but I really just want to stare
at that right in front of me.
But, yeah, it's great to be back.
What are you hoping to see?
Oh, I'm hoping to see
a bit of magic, Will.
I've got a feeling there's something
really wonderful under that blanket.
I can't wait to see it.
Shall I do it? OK.
A little bit of fairy dust.
Oh...
SHE GASPS
Oh, God!
SHE LAUGHS
Oh, my God, look at it!
Oh, my God, the little chimney
pots and everything!
Look at the wood!
How have you done that?!
That's a house any fairy would
be pleased to live in, isn't it?
Oh, my heart is just racing.
I feel like I'm
seven years old again.
I can't believe what you've done.
That's nuts.
It's so cool.
My dad would love this,
he'd love it.
And my mum would just think
it was amazing.
I've just got the best reminder
of the most incredible parents.
Thank you.
It's just gorgeous.
Been an absolute pleasure.
Yeah, an absolute honour. Thank you.
Thank you, guys. You're awesome.
Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.
I think, whatever age you are,
once your parents are gone,
you always feel it, but...
..it's so nice to have something
so magical to remember them by.
I feel like I got a piece
of my mum and dad back.
Yeah, I really did.
The next hopeful visitor
is Jaishmin Shah from Stanmore.
She's carrying a well-travelled
piece of family history
for the attention of Louise Drover.
Hello, there. Hello.
Look at this.
There we go.
There we are.
This is lovely. Beautiful thing.
It belonged to my mum.
This, originally, is from India.
My mum got it in 1959.
Her dad took her and her siblings
on the equivalent of a pilgrimage
in a place called Palitana,
which is the holy place for Jains.
And when they went to do
this pilgrimage, my grandad
bought her this painting.
Now, I'm not too familiar
with...Jain...Jainism? Jainism.
Jainism. What is Jainism?
It's a religion or way of life.
If you're a Jain, you follow a way
of life which brings the least
amount of harm to other
living beings around you.
There are overlaps with Jainism
and Buddhism.
That's how my mum followed it.
Is your mother still alive?
No, she passed away in 2015.
So she got it in India.
Where did it go from there?
From India, it went to Uganda,
where she lived with my dad
and the extended family.
And there she had a room,
which was a temple.
It was placed there, framed,
and I think in my mum's mind, that's
where it would have stayed forever
until Idi Amin came into power
and he decided the Asians
are no longer welcome.
So, as part of that,
we had to leave.
And this painting, you know,
meant so much to my mum.
Yes. She wasn't going to leave it
behind. She took it out of the frame
and rolled it up in a sari,
and it was put in her one
suitcase that they could fill
and take with them. Really? Yes.
It must have been really frightening
for you, as children.
I do remember the part when we were
on the tarmac going to the plane,
cos my mum would always make me
hold her sari, and at one point
she was taken away.
I think they were just searching
anybody, if they had any jewellery
or anything valuable,
they would take it off,
and I was separated from my mum,
and that was quite traumatic.
We came to the United Kingdom
and we were in a refugee camp
for nine months.
Gosh. And this was with her
throughout.
Every now and then I would see
her just touching this.
And I think this gave her strength,
and I know it brought her comfort,
because wherever we lived, my mum
always made, like, a little temple
to herself, and invariably
they were always under the stairs -
the cupboard under the stairs.
I mean, she was tiny.
She was 4'9", so she could
stand under the stairs,
and this painting was always
there, wrapped up with... Safe.
..safe with her. Yeah. What exactly
would you like Louise
to do with the painting?
Just any improvements
would be appreciated.
Whatever you can do with it.
I think, if you see where it's
been rolled are the creases...
That's the key damage, isn't it?
It's lost all the gold
and the pigments
going across on those lines,
so that can certainly be improved.
And that is actually real gold on
there. Is it?! Is it?! It is, yes.
Really? Yes. Oh, wow! There's no
signs of tarnishing or anything.
And because it was so important -
it's a religious piece -
it would have always had the best
pigments and proper gold.
Oh, wow! So, yeah, that's
the reverence they gave these
religious items.
I don't think my mum knew that!
No? No! Wow, God!
I mean, my mum loved it
as it was, rolled up.
But, you know, I would really
like to sort of display
it in my house... Yeah, yeah.
..so we can see it. Thank you so
much for bringing this down.
It's absolutely beautiful. Can't
wait to get started. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Bye. Bye-bye.
When I look at the painting,
I just see my mum smiling at me.
It's been in our family for so long,
and it meant so much to my mum,
it gave her courage and strength,
and I want it, you know, to
hopefully give me half
the strength it gave her.
Now that it's out of the frame,
you can see these wonderful,
vibrant, fresh colours.
However, your eye's drawn to quite
a lot of cracking along
this creasing, quite a lot of loss
on the gold, quite a lot of pigment
loss, as well.
There's also a major tear,
actually, top and bottom.
Now I can see the painting
much more clearly,
it's a case of some light
surface cleaning,
it needs to be lined, and then
consolidating these cracked areas,
ready for retouching.
So I'm just starting the surface
clean. I can only really clean
in the areas where the pigment
is quite sound.
Considering it was rolled up
in a suitcase in a refugee camp,
it's amazing how much of it
is actually still present.
Outside, the cast-iron elements
of the test-your-strength machine
have been doing just that for Dom.
I've just taken off this sign,
and look at what I have discovered
underneath. This is absolute gold.
I mean, it's not, it's green.
The original paint, hidden
underneath the sign.
Now I've exposed it, I can see,
and I can get a perfect colour match
to repaint this whole machine
in this lovely pea-green colour.
It's brilliant. This all now can be
sent off to be sandblasted,
because I'm confident I know
what colour to paint it.
It is not good news for the dial.
Unfortunately,
it's deteriorated so badly.
It's actually a piece of paper
printed and stuck
to a piece of wood. So all I can
really do at this point is make a
whole new one. The good news is that
I've got enough detailed information
on this that I'm taking
measurements, I've taken a picture,
and I'm using all of this as
reference to redraw, as best
I can, all of this, then I can get
that printed and stick
it onto a new piece of wood.
I've got all of the pieces of the
try-your-strength machine back
from being sandblasted,
which is a brilliant process.
It's stripped them right
back to the bare metal
and all these surfaces
are primed and ready to paint.
All of these pieces on the bench
are the workings of the mechanism.
I've given everything here a
thorough good clean,
rebuilt a couple of parts,
everything's been painted,
it's all ready to assemble,
and I've got a terrifying
pile of tiny little screws.
So the sooner this gets put
back together, the better.
That is the mechanism complete.
You can sort of get an idea
of how it works.
That feels really good.
So nice to see this gleaming,
like it should be,
and everything working perfectly.
I can't wait to get
this in the machine now.
All right. I'll try not to break it
again, getting it in there.
That's it, perfect.
Oh, yes.
At the moment, I feel like I am
over a really big hurdle, getting
this machine working again,
but it's a lot more than just
a fairground machine to Marie.
This is going to be a beautiful
representation and memory
of her husband, Robert.
So, with that in mind, I've got now
a lot more of the jewellery to put
on - the nice sign on the front,
all the brass pieces - and really
get this thing looking its best.
This text down here -
"The improved strength-testing
machine company" -
I think it's brilliant.
These guys made this thing
in the first place.
I feel it's only right that they get
a little bit more detail.
So I'm just putting on some
gold size, which I've tinted
with a little bit of yellow paint,
over just the raised lettering...
..and then I'm going
to gold-leaf it.
It's been an extremely difficult
repair for Mark
on the 1930s Bakelite radio,
but the end is in sight.
We are now at the stage
where the chassis is going to go
into the radio.
Let's...do it bit by bit.
There we go. OK, I'm just going
to screw those back in.
Last thing to do
is to solder these up,
shorten these cables,
fit them on there.
Job's a good'un.
Right. That's it.
I'm really happy with that.
Electronically now, it's complete.
I've just got a few little
aesthetic touches to do,
finish off, and then after that,
I just can't wait to see
what Luigi thinks.
This radio played a vital part
in Luigi's post-war household,
providing a focal point for family
life and even teaching them English.
My Bakelite radio means so much,
just not to myself,
but to my two sisters.
We were brought up
around that radio.
So many good memories.
It will be like bringing back...
..family members back alive again.
So excited.
I couldn't even sleep last night.
Just wanted to get back.
Here he is. Hi.
How are you doing? Marvellous.
Absolutely marvellous. Excited!
Oh, bless you.
Don't know what to expect.
So this symbolises a lot to you,
doesn't it?
It's always been with us,
bringing the family together.
Oh, it just means so much to me.
Let's let him see it.
You do the honours. Ready?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Wow!
You've cleaned it up.
Un... Unbelievable.
Oh...
You've brought the family
back together.
That's nice to know.
That's all I can say. I'm amazed.
It's like brand-new.
I do not know the last time I saw
the Bakelite shine like this.
Oh, OK.
And now, can I turn it on?
The big test, yeah? Yeah.
CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
Oh, my God!
Amazed.
I'm trying to associate
the music now, aren't I?
How does that feel, to hear it
again? Oh, fantastic! Yeah?
Inside, I'm shaking.
So the whole family used to listen
to this, back in the day? Always.
Are you going to do that again?
Yeah.
My sisters have already
phoned me today. Yeah.
"As soon as you're out,
let us know if it's working,
"and when are we coming up
"so we can turn it on
and listen to it?"
We can get together.
So that will be a priority.
It'll be as if my mother and father
are there as well, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. That will reinstate
what happened 60, 70 years ago.
And, you know, thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
It's been a really lovely journey
to bring it back to life again
and to see the expression
on your face
and those memories coming back
into you. Unbelievable. Yeah.
Thank you so much. Thank you both.
All right, you take care. Bye.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Wow. Wow!
Absolutely, wow.
That's all I can say.
It's now bringing back
so many other memories, as well -
just not about the radio,
but how we lived,
what we did as a family...
We didn't have much,
and, without that,
we wouldn't have had anything.
It would have been hard
to communicate.
Now I know it's going
to be cherished
for many, many years to come.
Louise is calling upon her in-depth
knowledge and specialist toolkit
to rescue a fragile Indian painting.
Quite a lot of the gold
is lifting off.
I need to consolidate the pigments.
I'd quite often use a gelatine
to consolidate gold,
but to respect Jainism,
no animal products
should be near it.
So I'm actually going to use
a funori,
which is a seaweed product,
actually,
and just apply it to these areas
on the vacuum table.
The reason you use the vacuum table
is because it's a very controlled
method of consolidation.
It'll go through all those
cracking areas
and bring them together.
I just want to seal the losses.
It not only bonds it down
onto the surface,
but it also provides
a layer to retouch onto.
So this is a light sheet,
and it actually,
by placing it underneath,
you can just see quite how bad
these cracks and creases are.
So I've made a decision
to actually line it.
I'm going to line it
on Japanese tissue.
It's very forgiving
and it gives it extra support.
So I'm going to paste this up now.
And now the lining paper.
Now it's got the lining on,
I'm turning it over onto this
wooden board here,
just so that I can actually
drum it out.
It's called drumming out
cos, really, you're putting
it under a little bit of tension.
What happens when it dries is,
it just lightly shrinks.
This will actually pull out
all the memory of these deep creases
that have developed
since it's been rolled up
in a suitcase.
Then it's really just
left to dry in its own time.
Once it's done,
that should be lovely and flat
and ready for retouching.
All these pigments I'm using
are plant-based,
just to respect the philosophy
of Jainism.
We've got vermillion,
got a bit of yellow ochre, indigo.
The gold's quite interesting
because it has these very nice
raised areas.
In the West, we kind of
call this pastiglia.
So it's usually like a chalk layer.
However, looking at this closer,
it's almost a clay.
So it's just filling in all those
losses where all the bumps are.
And, yeah, it's really enjoyable,
actually.
I love this bit.
It all comes together.
It's fantastic.
So I'll just carry on
and just enjoy myself.
This area here just needs
some gold leaf adding.
It's 24 carat.
Fairly easy.
Just press through with your finger,
and we just take off the
loose parts afterwards.
Pick up this very soft
pony-hair brush.
Just tamp it down,
and any excess...
SHE BLOWS
..just blow it away.
There.
Dom is also on the home straight,
rebuilding the
carefully restored parts
of the test-your-strength machine.
You know what?
That dial is looking so good.
Yes! It fits perfectly.
It's been a really long road
for me, this.
But standing back now,
I'm just able to admire it, really.
And I'm just so chuffed.
I'm sure that Marie is going
to absolutely love it.
But I just really hope
that it's what Robert wanted.
I really hope that I've sort of
done him justice.
Last piece.
Ah! Look at that.
Love it.
This machine was the
prized plaything of Rob,
a loving family man
and a keen collector.
For his wife, Marie,
it's a connection to him
and the times they spent together.
This whole process has obviously
made my time with Rob more
memorable,
and the idea of taking
this machine home
and actually being able to
use it again
and have those family memories again
is very, very exciting.
Marie, hi. Hi, Dom.
It's so nice to see you again.
It's lovely to see you.
I'm so excited.
Are you? Yeah.
I'm excited, but I'm so nervous.
Are you? I really am. Yeah.
Do you know,
I'm a little nervous, too. Yes!
THEY LAUGH
Oh, I want to show you. Ready? Yeah.
Oh!
Goodness me. That is
truly, truly outstanding.
I... I'm blown away.
It is utterly outstanding.
I love it. I absolutely love it.
You couldn't have done me
more proud. Oh...
It's just so, so lovely.
Thank you. That really means a lot.
And I love the colour.
Actually, when I was taking it
apart, this is the original colour.
Well, that's really lovely to know.
It suits it.
I'm honestly relieved
that you like it. I really am.
But what do you think Rob
would think of it?
He would have loved it.
And the fact that you've
managed to get
all of the detail of
the wording along there
so precisely, and the dial,
I can't believe you did that.
Does it work? Do you want to have
a go? I don't know if I can...
The pennies are on the floor.
You're welcome.
All right. Let's have a go. You have
to give it a good old tug, but...
Oh...
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
It's 150. Oh, 150.
THEY LAUGH
Very good!
Very good. My goodness.
Wow. I don't even know what to say,
beyond it's just truly fantastic.
I'm so chuffed. Thank you. You're
welcome. Really, thank you.
Honestly, you're so welcome.
Now, I really hope you don't mind,
but everyone inside has been
dying to have a go.
Do you mind if I call them out?
Absolutely not. Go get them!
Brilliant.
Guys, come outside a second.
Hope you're ready, been doing your
stretches. Oh, yes! Yeah!
We're good to go.
Everyone's limbered up.
Everyone's ready. Yes. Yes!
I'm going. Go on! Woo!
Go, girl.
Right, come on! Woo!
Come on, Amanda!
Right, here we go. Here we go.
Give it some welly.
Oh...
Oh... ..50!
SHE GROANS
Oh, 180, was that? 180, 190?
Go, Julie!
Here we go.
Come on, Julie! Come on.
Bit more, bit more! There she goes.
Oh... 210!
Well done!
Where did that come from,
at the end? I don't know!
Go on, Steve. Show us how it's done!
Steve, you're in trouble now!
Go on, Steve! 300!
I'm really nervous now! 300!
Go, Steve, go!
That was quick. What did it go up
to? That was too quick!
240. Go on, then, Dom.
Oh, 260. 260.
What did you get, Steve? 240.
Oh, well... Well done. Thank you.
Thank you. Our champion.
The winner!
Marie, thank you so much
for letting us all have a go.
It's been really good fun.
Thank you very much indeed.
It's been an absolute pleasure,
and I'm just so delighted with this.
Thank you. Thank you.
Bye-bye. Thank you.
Lovely to meet you. Bye, Marie.
It really was just quite
a magical moment, actually,
and I see this as a bit of a legacy.
What we've done is to bring his...
..a little bit of his memory
back to life again,
and Rob would have undoubtedly
been looking
and thinking, "This is wonderful."
Louise has been painstakingly
restoring a beautiful picture
that travelled across continents,
and she's finishing
with a bespoke frame.
We call these fillets.
They're just spaces, really.
They hold the artwork away
from the glazing.
It's like having an air gap
around the artwork,
just to make sure they
don't touch the glass.
Pop it in.
Let's see how that goes.
Oh, it looks nice in this frame.
It's not far off.
I think these beads in the middle
are touching
cos they're quite large,
but we're nearly there.
And not long until Jaishmin
can see it all reframed.
For Jaishmin's mother,
fleeing political upheaval in Uganda
to get her family to safety,
this picture was a talisman
that made her feel
safe and protected
and connected her to home.
It's been there all my life,
and it brought my mum a lot of joy,
strength, contentment,
and I took it for granted.
And after she's passed away,
I would like to see if it can give
me the strength that it gave her.
Hello. Hello. Hi, Jaishmin.
Hi. Nice to see you again.
Yes, nice to be back again.
Nervous, though. Are you?
Just nervous...
..to see what it's like.
And I only know the painting
as I've seen it -
crushed and cracked
and in a sorry state. Yes.
So, ready to have a look? Yeah.
Oh, my...
..gosh!
That's beautiful.
SHE INHALES
Sorry.
Oh...
That is just lovely.
That's beyond what I expected.
I feel like my mum's here.
I really do feel she's...
..here.
And I'm just so happy.
They're happy tears, honestly. Good.
I can see why my mum fell in love
with it. I really can.
It's just so beautiful.
And the colours, they...
They look brighter.
It's just amazing.
And I imagine I'm just
touching on the surface
of what it must
have meant to my mum.
Thank you. You're very welcome.
It's been fantastic to work on.
Absolutely beautiful.
Thanks a lot for coming down.
I'll grab the door for you. Right.
When I first saw the painting,
I honestly thought,
this is like a surreal moment.
It... I'm dreaming just how
fabulous the painting looks.
I think I felt a glimmer
of what my mum must have felt
the first time she set her eyes
on that painting.
Join us next time as all
creatures great and small...
All right. Let's save Piglet's
bacon.
Oh!
..are brought back to life...
Look at him!
Thank you so much.
..in The Repair Shop.