Renovating a wartime leather wallet once used as an oar and a brightly coloured banana barrow, the heirloom experts offer ancient crafts, patience and much-needed human warmth
I am not sure there is a more lovely show on television than The Repair Shop, now perfectly settled in to its newish primetime home on BBC One, following its promotion from Two earlier this year. It is so good-natured and pure, so wholesome and nice, that at times it seems too good for this cold and cynical world.
The people who bring in family heirlooms for a scrubbing-up or a full-body rebuild bring their stories with them, and their stories, as ever, are heartwarming. The set-ups are always borderline surreal, but one of this week’s big stories is truly fantastic: “Suzie repairs a leather wallet that helped save a world war two air crew marooned at sea.” You don’t get that on Celebrity Antiques Road Trip. Andrew has brought in an old wallet, falling apart at every seam, damaged beyond what anyone might reasonably assume could be fixed. It belonged to his father, an airman who was shot down in 1941 and ended up in a liferaft with no paddles. The wallet became a makeshift oar. Suzie sets about restoring it with such an eye for the finest of details that she needs two pairs of glasses to see the stitching.