Xuenou > Television > The Repair Shop, review: this Jubilee special served up a mixed bag of broken treasures
The Repair Shop, review: this Jubilee special served up a mixed bag of broken treasures
A Yeoman Warder and a pearly queen were among those seeking help from the master fixers

The Repair Shop, review: this Jubilee special served up a mixed bag of broken treasures

In the special Jubilee episode of The Repair Shop (BBC One) people were urged to bring in things with a royal link. Who half hoped that a certain duke might enter the barn hoping that someone might restore his battered reputation? Perhaps some things are beyond fixing.

Instead there was a customised tandem that John from Somerset, recently widowed, had pedalled around Normandy in 1977 with his wife-to-be. They’d painted it red, white and blue and, misconstruing this as a contribution to the entente cordiale, the French would cheer. 

Now it mainly consisted of rust. You know what happened next. John was much moved, as was anyone with a beating heart. You just hope he makes it over the South Downs when he essays London to Brighton for charity.

Some people dressed up for the occasion, and not just in statement cloth caps like diamond geezer Jay Blades, who laced his usual lovely jubbly welcome with an infusion of deference. Enter Peter, Yeoman Ward of the Tower of London, in full beefeating fig. He presented the brass lantern he carries on his nightly lock-up and pronounced it wobbly. There is probably more sophisticated security in situ for the Crown Jewels these days, perhaps involving computers and foot-thick steel, but who doesn’t love the trappings of Ruritanian operetta? Anyway, it didn’t require much repairing.

A pearly queen and a pearly prince handed in a jacket that a recently deceased pearly king hadn’t quite finished. This wasn’t strictly a repair job at all. They basically wanted the seamstresses to hand-sew a lot of buttons on. If the smiling ladies sustained needle-based RSI, they kept it off camera.

My favourite item was a broken plate brought from the north-east by Helen. Her grandfather, a miner, had daubed a riot of flowers onto it in 1887. In the 1970s Helen’s mum dropped it. Gummy glue now bulged like ridges of lava from the cracks. Kirsten, the very quietest expert in the barn, made all flaws vanish as if by magic, apart from the spelling of “jubiliee” on the back.