11x36 - A kitchen calendar, a Trinidadian book & an Ocarina

[bunniefuu]

In The Repair Shop today...

- I mean, I'm loving it, but I'm
feeling...

..terror.

- ..challenging restorations...

- Think I'm going to go for it.

- ..bring some nail-biting moments.

- I'm going to submerge this in the
solution

and hope that we can still see the
windmill at the end of it.

- BIRDS TWITTER

Today's first visitors are sisters
Katie and Anna James.

They've brought a time capsule of
childhood memories

in need of Dominic Chinea's
restorative touch.

Hello. Hello.
- Hello.
- How are you doing?
- Hi.

- Hello.
- Good, how are you?

- Very good. That's a lovely pink bag.
- Thank you.

- Must be something in there for us.
- Yes.

- Let's have a look.
- We have a little calendar.

This belonged to our great nan, our
Nanny Pat.

- Wow.
- It needs a bit of TLC.
- Yes.
- A bit?!
- Yeah.

We think that someone bought it as a
souvenir...
- OK.

- ..for our great nan, around the
'60s.

Yeah. So we think that it's from
Holland,

it makes sense, with the windmill.

- Oh, there's a windmill!
- Yeah.

- It was worn and sun-beaten.

- Faded from the sun, yeah.
- Yeah.

- What was Nanna Pat like?
- Oh...

She was so gentle and calm, and...

- Firm as well, though.
- Yeah.

- Had the...
- Yeah, yeah.
- ..a sternness.

- Yeah, don't muck about.
- You didn't...
- But we never...
- We didn't want to.

- Yeah.
- "Ooh, OK."
- We didn't feel the need to either,
though,

did we?
- No. No.
- Because she was so focused on us

while we were there, the whole time.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.

- And we spent summer holidays,

all the school holidays, really.
- Yeah, any opportunity.
- Yeah.

So this lived above her kitchen sink.

This little bit is meant to turn
around and in each side

there's numbers of the month.

- Oh, so you spin the whole thing and
it flips to the next one?
- Yeah.

And as children, we were always
fascinated with it.
- Yeah.

- So it was just that little bit of
morning fun.

You get up, "OK, I want to do the
calendar today."
- "I'm spinning it, Nana."
- Yeah.

- Do you remember doing that?
- Yeah!
- Yes!
- Really?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.

Found out some stories recently,
didn't we,

about...
- Yeah.
- ..more about Nan's character.

So she was from Ireland originally,

and then she moved over here to join
the Women's Air Force.

Then, after she left the Air Force,
she had my nan...
- Yeah.

- ..she'd got married, got a job in a
barber's,

and then got her own barbershop.
- Yeah.

- She got her own barbershop?!
- Yes.
- Yeah.

- Wow!
- Good on her.

- Considering, obviously...

- Yeah. Because her first husband...

- Yeah.
- ..he actually left her after my nan
was born.

- Right.

- He said he was going out one day
for...

- Cigarettes, I think she said.

- Cigarettes and milk or something
like that. And he just...

..he didn't come back.
- He never came back?!

- He just left her, like that.

She worked fiercely, didn't she...
- Yeah.

- ..as a single mum back then...
- Yeah.

- ..to keep my nan, you know, clothed
and fed and everything, and...

- I'm quite proud of her, though.
- Yeah, so am I.
- What an amazing thing. I
think...that's...
- Yeah.

- Yeah, I think that's cool.
- Yeah.

When she passed away...
- Yeah.
- ..we wanted different things.

And this was one of the things that I
wanted, just because of the...

..the memories of turning it and the
fun that we had.
- Yeah.

- Those childhood feelings that you
get

when you're with your grandparents.

- And why is it like this, then?

Where's it been?
- It's been...

- Ooh, there you go.
- Oh, very quick.

- Yeah, that was super-quick.
- Ooh!
- Very quick.

- I didn't even get the question out.
- No.
- "It's her."
- All her.

- OK. What happened?
- So I kept it above MY kitchen sink.

- OK.
- Tradition, that's it.
- Yeah.

And it happened to be moved

by my current husband...
- Yeah.
- ..to a cupboard,

and then, when I got it out recently,

I was like, "What's this doing up
here?"
- Yeah.

- It had gone rusty.

It now just doesn't work at all.

- Oh, so it didn't look like this...
- No.
- ..when you inherited it?

- No.
- Yeah, the rust, that's definitely a
new thing.

- That's a new thing, and someone's to
blame for that.

- Yeah.
- Oh, dear.

- I feel...
- Disappointed in yourself?

- I do...
- Wow.
- Yeah.
- I was going to say "disappointed."

- Ooh.
- Yeah, I do. I do.

I feel really... I feel really upset
because everything else

I have looked after so well...

- Yeah.
- ..but when I pulled it out the
cupboard, I was like...

- You did actually call me and you
were like, "Oh, no!"

You were upset - I will give her that.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Good.

- I know it's a silly little thing,
probably, to a lot of people,

and it's obviously not worth anything,

but it's just...it's deeper than that,
isn't it?

It's just... And it'd be lovely for my
children to be able to flip it

and play with it at your house, and
have that memory.

I mean, they might not want to,
but...they will.

- Yeah.
- Because I'll be like, "You will."
- I want to.

- SHE LAUGHS

- Well, how do you see it - once it's
restored?

- Working.
- Just working?
- Yeah.

- Clean and working.

But underneath all of that rust, there
is a beautiful thing...

- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- ..we just need to find it.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Perfect.

- Thank you for bringing this in and,
um...
- Thank you.
- Thank you very much.

- ..just showing it. You guys are
brilliant sisters.

Love it. Love it.
- Lovely.

Thank you.
- Thank you so much.
- Have a nice day.
- Thank you.

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

- I really do admire Katie and Anna's
love of this little calendar.

It just brings back so many memories
for them.

I am going to do my best to bring this
back to life.

This is really rusty.

All of those years of this sitting on
Nanny Pat's windowsill,

in the kitchen, the sun has basically
faded the surface.

I can see the faintest little sort of
outline

of a windmill on this side.

Ooh, here we go.

Hopefully this is going to come off
here.

OK. Perfect.

That's the outer ring removed.

I think we're in.

So, five...

..four...

..three...

..four!

- DOMINIC LAUGHS

- Now, I may not be very good at
maths,

but I know that's not supposed to
happen.

It's trying to work.

It's so close, but it's just sticking
-

and that is probably to do with the
amount of rust

that has built up around all the
parts.

I'm going to take the casing off

and get all of those little cards
inside out, see how that all works.

I have got to be so careful that I
don't mess up the order.

- DOMINIC GROANS

- OK. As soon as I've got all of these
little number flags

out of the case, the case itself, and
the actual frame,

can all go in the rust remover,

and fingers crossed it gets rid of it

because some of these pieces are
really, really rusty.

- Arriving next is Denise
Ramsey-Overall from London.

She's hoping bookbinder Chris Shaw can
revive a much-loved memento

with a deep connection to her family's
heritage.

Hello.
- Hello.
- How you doing? You all right?
- I'm fine, thank you.

- So, what have you brought us in?

- Right, Little Folks' Trinidad.

This is, like, my mum's schoolbook
from 1935.

- Wow.
- This is my mum's childhood.

This is part of my mum, you know?

And this is connected to her growing
up in Trinidad.

- Mum's name? What's Mum's...?
- Sheila.

- Sheila?
- Yeah.

She came over here, like, 1954...
- OK.

- ..on the Hildebrand. Docked at, I
think, is it Liverpool,

and then took the train down to
London.

- And why did she decide to come over
here?

- The call was put out and we
responded.

Yeah, came back to build up Britain.

- So the call was basically after the
Second World w*r...

- That's correct.
- ..Britain asked the people in the
Commonwealth

if they can come and help support,
yeah?
- Yes. The mother country.

- Right. And then she came over, and
then did she stay in London?

- Yes. Yeah, London born and bred...
- OK.
- ..we are, all of us. Yeah.

- So what did she come and do?

- She did her own catering, so make,
you know, West Indian food,

and then, you know, send it out to
parties,

weddings and stuff like that.
- Wow.

- She even had a...

..ran a shebeen.

- A shebeen? Wow!

I haven't heard that word in a long
time.

Seriously?!
- Yeah.

- OK. Sorry, Chris.
- I was like, "Yeah, yeah."

Yeah, I'm out of this one.
- A shebeen is kind of like a...

- Like a speakeasy.
- Like a speakeasy,

but a place where people from the
Caribbean came over,

wasn't welcomed into certain
nightclubs,

so they set up their own stuff.

So she was an entrepreneur then?
- Oh, for real.

- So how old was Sheila when she was
using this book?

- Oh, she must have been around about
ten.

- Wow.
- About ten. Ten, 11, yeah.

She's always mentioned, you know,
Little Folks' Trinidad growing up.

So it's just like a concise history,
geography,

of old Trinidad and Tobago.

Keep in mind that we were still under
the crown...
- Yes.

- ..so the whole context and the whole
outlay of the book

is very much of the time.
- Yeah.

So this book is talking about a time

where there was British rule of the
island?
- Yes, that's correct.

- Mum has kept this book, so was she
quite proud

of the education that she received...

- Yes. Yes.
- ..back then?
- Yeah.

It pertains to me, and my family, and
my culture,

and I can't see it any other way but
in a positive light.
- Yeah.

- And my mum would definitely not see
it in a negative light.
- Nah, 100%.

- If it makes her happy, it makes me
happy.

- The older generation are the ones,
the reason why we're here.

We have to honour...
- Yes.
- ..what their thinkings are.
- Yes.

- So what's wrong with the book?

- Oh, gosh, it's just literally
falling to pieces.

- And do you know what would have been
on the spine,

on the back of it?

- Oh, it would just have probably
Little Folks' Trinidad at the back
here.

- And what's the way you want it to
look?

How do you want this to be?

- Well, as near as and as authentic as
it was from the press

because this has got to go for another
- Right.

- My mum is 97.
- 97?

- She's just had her great-grandchild,
so that's four generations now

and that will get passed down, yeah.
- OK.

- Well, thank you for bringing in your
mother's book.

- Thank you so much, guys.
- You take care now.

- Thank you, guys. I appreciate it.
Bye-bye.

- Wow. Well, it's over to you now.

- Thanks, Jay.
- All right.

And I'll take you to a shebeen, don't
worry. I'll take you to one.

Bless him. He doesn't get out much,
does he?

- There's so much history tied up in
this tiny little book.

And for Denise's mum, Sheila, it's
immensely special.

But the outside is very, very tired.

It's at the point of collapse.

It's just hanging on by a thread,

so I'm just going to cut it off.

And the best thing I can do for this
book

is to totally dismantle this and then
mend all the dog ears,

rips in this book, get that strength
back into the sections,

and then sew it properly and then
construct a whole new spine

so that it can be used again.

And then I will make a lovely little
box to house

it in because it does need protecting.

- All of these pieces of the calendar
have been soaking

in this rust-removing solution for,
clearly, long enough.

Look at that.

All of that surface rust is gone and
I'm left with that nice

chrome, shiny finish.

I'm quite pleased with that.

All that is going to need is

a little clean up with some wire wool
to get those last few

stubborn bits off.

The fact that that solution has worked
so well and so gentle,

maybe I could use the same technique
on this.

I was cautious to start with because
by submerging

it in the solution I know will remove
the rust,

but there is a risk that it may also
remove the windmill print.

But I think, honestly, it's worth the
risk.

I think I'm going to go for it,

submerge this in the solution, keep my
fingers crossed

and hope that we can still see the
windmill at the end of it.

There we go. Just need to wait now.

OK.

These faces of the windmill calendar

have been sitting in this
rust-removing solution

now for a while and the worst has
happened.

I did kind of expect it because the
rust

was so bad and the print was so thin,

it was almost flaking off anyway.

This is obviously far from ideal.

The good news is that all of the rust
has now been removed

and I've got a nice, clean, prepared
surface that I can paint and prime.

I just need to think of a plan to
reapply that windmill.

I've gone away and done some homework

and I've actually managed to get hold
of a nice, high-resolution

image of what this windmill used to
look like.

So I'm going to make a water slide
transfer of this image,

but it's always been a bit faded

and you can vaguely work out a
windmill.

And they weren't quite sure if it came
from Holland or not

because you couldn't quite read it.

That's kind of part of its charm.

So I'm using a photo-editing program
to manipulate the image with

sort of like desaturated layers and
faded layers.

So I'll get a few options printed and
pick the one I like the most.

I'm so glad I had a few different
variations printed because

I will admit, it's very subtle, but
there are some differences.

So I can lay them all out now and have
a proper look,

pick my favourite before I stick them
on.

That one or that one?

I really like that one.

I think that's the winner.

I'm going to dunk that in the water,

let it activate the glue...

..I'm going to fish it out and try and
slide it onto the surface.

OK. Breathe.

Now it's on, that's perfect,

no creases, no major problems.

I'm just going to sort of blot off any
excess water.

Once that's all dry, I can start
thinking about reassembly.

Kirsten, do you want to join me,
please?
- Yeah.

- Next, a challenge for the barn's
resident ceramics expert.

- All right?
- Mm-hm.
- Got Barbara coming in.

- Barbara?
- Yes.
- Great. Lovely.

- Barbara Sykes from West Sussex

is hoping Kirsten can get a cherished

keepsake to hit all the right notes.

- Hello.
- Hello.

Nice to meet you both.
- You, too. This looks exciting.

- I'm quite confused. I don't know
what it is.

- It's called an ocarina.

- An ocarina?
- Ocarina.

- And what does an ocarina do?

- KIRSTEN AND BARBARA: It's a musical
instrument.

- Snap.
- Oh, wow!

- That's it, so you blow in there.
- Yeah.

- And you hold it the same as a
recorder.
- OK.

- It was my Auntie Joan's and she was
born in 1920,

and I believe it was given to her.
- Yeah.

- And then I picked it up when I was
about eight or nine,

and she gave it to me.

- Are you musical?

- Well, my family, we used to have
musical evenings.

So, Auntie Joan was one of nine.

We used to get to one of her brothers'
houses

and out would come the piano
accordion...
- Wow.

- ..the recorders, guitars.

I would play that and Auntie Joan
would play the Swanee whistle,

and we just used to make a hell of a
din, really,

but it was good.

It was every week we'd do it.

- Wow.
- Yeah. A lot of fun.

- Amazing.
- It does sound fun.

- It's lovely.
- Lovely.

- Auntie Joan was just the most
amazing lady.

- Yeah?
- Absolutely amazing.

She was into amdrams,

she used to make celebratory cakes,

she looked after old people.

She was always so loving.

And, because she never married,

she used to have myself and my sisters
over a lot.

And we would just stay there a lot of
the time

through the summer holidays.

- So fond memories, then?
- Very.
- Yeah?

And she's not with us any more?
- No.
- OK.
- Right.

So what's actually wrong with it?

What do you want doing?

- The end has been snapped off

and I think it was Auntie Joan that
stuck the end on.
- Right.

- I mean, it's clearly damaged, but
it's absolutely beautiful.

My goodness.

- And that's all ceramic?
- That's clay. It's clay, it's clay.

- Is it clay?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- When you play the scale, one of the
notes sounds a bit flat.

- Oh, my goodness.

- When you play the bottom notes, it's
OK.

- OCARINA BECOMES INCREASINGLY OFF-KEY
- Oh, yeah.

- So you get to the top and it's quite
husky.

- It's a really sort of mellow sound,
isn't it?

It's lovely.
- Yeah.

- Wow.
- That's really cool.

- I mean, I'm loving it, but I'm
feeling terror, if I'm honest.

- Why are you feeling terror?

- Yeah, because I don't know if I
can...

I can fix things, but I...

A musical instrument,

I don't know if I can...
- I'm with you.
- ..get rid of the huskiness.

I'm very willing to give it a go.

- Thank you.

- So, if Kirsten's able to fix this,

and get the notes sounding a bit
better,

what are you going to do with it?

- Well, I've just bought my
eight-year-old grandson

an electric guitar for Christmas.
- Wow.

- And my sister, she plays recorders,
and my husband's got a guitar, so,

yeah, it would be nice to have
everybody round, grandchildren,

and just start playing some music
again.

- And this will be kind of
centre-point,

like you're playing this along with
the family.
- Absolutely.

It's just lovely.
- It is lovely.

- It's just Auntie Joan.

She was just an amazing auntie.

- Well, listen, thank you for bringing
this in.
- Thank you.

And thank you very much, indeed. Nice
to meet you both.

- All right, see you soon.
- Thank you.
- Bye-bye.
- Bye.

- What a beautiful thing that
Barbara's brought in,

this really tactile ocarina.

I have played really primitive ones
when I was a child,

but this is really, really rather
beautiful.

It would be really nice to improve the
look of this old repair.

At the moment, I can feel it's quite
stepped.

Whilst I can't promise to get the
sound perfect,

it would be nice to see what's going
on inside.

So what I want to do is try and undo
this repair

and try and introduce, very carefully,

some acetone along this breakage.

And, with patience, hopefully it might
start to loosen.

I've gone through Denise's mum's
schoolbook,

meticulously mending any creases, dog
ears.

I've fixed some tears, I've fixed some
folded pages.

And I've also put a tiny piece of
Japanese tissue all along the back

of the sections, and that adds huge
amounts of strength.

And now it's all in perfect condition

and ready to be sewn together.

I'm using a very fine linen thread on
this.

The first knot you do is a reef knot,

and then, from then on, it's a kettle
stitch

and you loop down into the section
below,

come up...

..and then you've got this lasso bit

and then you come up there.

And then that ties a nice little knot,

which you can see all the way down.

It's a really nice process.

Once you get started and get into the
rhythm,

you can listen to music,

you can listen to the chitter-chat
that's going on.

And I can think ahead of what I've got
to do,

which is having a bit of fun with the
spine.

Well, the book now is all back
together,

ready for me to make the spine,

and, for that, I have got some
beautiful, textured vintage cloth.

So I'm going to cut a spine piece.

And now it's just a matter of glueing

this into place on the cloth.

The colour I'm happy with.

This is going to get neatened up and
cut back,

and then all these edges I need to
sort out.

I think it's a good start.

And our next job, really, once it's
dry,

is to tool Little Folks' Trinidad down
the spine

and then I can age it.

Gold tooling's a heat process

and, by heating this tool and then
cooling it down

to the correct temperature on my bit
of cotton wool,

the heat from the tool will transfer
whichever letter

it is onto the cloth.

And you don't need a huge amount of
pressure.

All you're trying to do is sort of
like a gentle kiss, basically.

Big moment to see whether it's
transferred successfully.

Well, it's come out. Yeah, it looks
like a proper schoolbook.

It's very bright, but I'm now going to
start ageing it

and, to do that, I'm just going to use
a bit of colour.

Once I've done the ageing on the gold,

then I've obviously got to stick the
sides down.

And then the final bit is putting the
text into the cover.

- While Chris dulls down the gold
leaf...

..Dom brightens up the calendar.

- I've given them quite a heavy wax,
which is going to prevent them

from going rusty in the future.

Let's get this all put back together.

I need to try and get all of these
number cards back

inside this tiny little box in the
right order,

the right way around.

Luckily, I did take some notes in my
notebook.

Hopefully we should be OK.



If this works out, I'll be relieved.

OK. Let's see how we go.



..27...

..29...

..31.

On we go. Onwards and upwards.

Number one...

..two...

..three...

Yeah, come on.

Four.

Relieved, to say the least.

It's working so well. That's perfect.

That's basically just relying on
gravity.

And, as you flip it over, the next one
drops down.

It's so simple.

I've got to give it to whoever
designed this in the first place,

very clever to actually manage to work
this out as a machine.

It's brilliant.

The base is finished.

All I need to do is get the two
windmill faces

actually back together,

put that inside, and it's ready to go
back to Katie and Anna.

Perfect.

- For Sisters Anna and Katie,

the calendar is a memento of happy
times with their beloved Nanna Pat.

- Hello.
- Hi.
- Hi.

- Welcome back.

- Nice to see you.
- Good to see you again.

- How are you?
- I'm good. I've had fun.

- Good.

I can't believe it's under there.

- I'm really nervous.

I know it's only a small thing and
obviously it's not...

It doesn't probably mean a lot to
anyone other than us, but...
- Yeah.

- It's really an important little link
to our childhood, really, isn't it?

- Do you want to have a look?
- KATIE AND ANNA: Yes.
- OK.

- BOTH: Oh, my God.

- That looks amazing.
- It looks...
- Can we...?

- Of course you can, pick it up.

- Oh, listen!

- I didn't think you would be able to
make it look the same.

- Me neither. I...

I didn't think I'd cry, but that's
really...

That is something, isn't it?
- Oh, my God.

- I love it.

And I'm not sure you should take it
home now either.

- I'm not allowed to keep it.
- I think it should come home with me,
yeah.

- Oh, my gosh. It looks amazing.

- It's the same thing?

You've literally got rid of all that
rust.

- Yeah, yeah. It's all the same.

I've had to have to replace the actual
image,

but very cautiously and try to make
it,

keep it looking as old as it was.

- The windmill is exactly as I kind of
remember it.

- Yeah, I agree.

I'm actually amazed that it looks that
good.

I just miss my nan.
- Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

- Being able to do that, do that again
and hear that noise again.

- Yeah, the noise and everything.

- Oh, that's so cool.

- Having these little things are just
little memories each time,

and this one just gives us so much.

Yeah.

- What is the plan for it now, after
you've had a fight

about who actually gets to take it
home?

- So, it is going on MY kitchen
windowsill.

So every morning, when I get up, I'm
going to turn it over.

Then when I have my nephews and nieces
over,

I will let them do it.
- Yeah. And then when you go to visit

and you haven't turned it over for a
couple of days, you can...

- I might let her, yeah.

- Then I can be like, "I thought you
were going to do it every day! It's my
turn, I'll do it.

"Maybe I should take it home if you're
neglecting it again."

- Yeah.
- No, it's great. Thank you. Really,
thank you.

- You're welcome. Well, it's yours to
take away.

- Thank you.
- Thank you very much.

- Good. Thank you. It's been lovely to
meet you both.
- And you.

- Thank you so much.
- You're welcome.
- Take care.
- Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.

The calendar,

it represents love,

the love for my nan and all the things
that we would do together

and the laughter and all of that joy
that we had.

- I'm happy that we had her for as
long as we did,

but sad that we've lost her.

But, to have that back, it's great,
isn't it?

- It's a little piece...
- A little piece of her.

- HE HUMS

Kirsten has managed to remove most of
the old glue

holding the ocarina together.

- There's still something just
clinging on here a little bit,

like when you have a wobbly tooth

and there's something just hanging on.

There we go.

Wow. There we go.

I can now look inside the ocarina...

..and...

..see what's going on.

I thought there might be more bits of
the cone missing,

but actually it all looks quite
intact.

So I'm going to see if I can clean off
this excess adhesive now.

I can then think about choosing the
right adhesive

to get this back together.

Because this is so porous, it's really
vital that I seal

these breakages before I bond them
together -

and this stops the adhesive being
drawn down into the clay.

That would give me a weaker bond.

The better the bonds, I'm hoping,

will have a positive impact on the
sound.

Barbara was really keen for this to
sound as good as it could.

So this is the lovely moment where I
unite the two pieces.

I'm going to apply the adhesive just
to one side.

You don't need too much.

I'm now going to reunite the pieces.

That has gone together beautifully.

I'm now going to leave that to dry.

The bond lines have now been filled
using an acrylic filler and...

..that's really lovely and smooth now.

You haven't got any step there at all.

I'm now ready to start trying to lose
the white filler

and start to blend it in with this
lovely dark surface.

I'm going to use some acrylic colours.

I love retouching -

for me, it's one of the real pleasures
in my work.

I love colour and I love that
challenge of trying to mimic

and copy a decorated design.

I can see lots of colours in here.

I can see browns, I can see almost an
ochre in there

and don't want to coat the whole thing
-

I don't know if it would impact on the
sound -

so I'm just going to keep the repair
to a minimum.

That's starting to blend in really
nicely now.

I've probably got a couple more rounds
to do

and then it's going to be ready to
hand back to Barbara.

- The marriage of old and new has also
been successful for Chris.

- The spine is all nicely aged, so I'm
really happy with that.

It looks nice and old.

And the final bit is putting the text
into the cover

and, to do that, I'm sticking the
inside down with some PVA.

Really simple.

It's these joints, this is called.

Then the old is going to get stuck
back over the top.

I've never come across a Trinidad
schoolbook

and I love the fact that it's really
important to Sheila,

and I am really happy that I managed
to bring it back.

So I just need to leave that to dry,

then it's all ready to go back to
Denise.

- The Trinidadian schoolbook arrived
at the barn

with its cover hanging by a thread and
missing its spine.

For Denise, the book is a tangible
link to her 97-year-old mother

Sheila's childhood in the Caribbean.

- There she is.

Wow, look at you!
- Hi, guys.

- How you doing?
- Excellent.

- How you feeling?
- I'm feeling good, I'm feeling good.

I feel excited as well.

- And Mum, is she all right?
- Yeah, she's good. She's good.

Yeah, she's excited to see it.

- Wow.
- Yeah.
- So you're excited, Mum's excited.

You ready to see it?

- Yeah.

- Do the honours then, Chris.

- Oh, amazing.

Wicked.

Oh, sweet.

Oh!

I love it. I love it. I love it.

And I like how it's still authentic.

You know, this is part of my mum.
- Yeah.

- You know, so...

- TEARING UP:
- Yeah, it means a lot.

Thank you so much for this.

- Aw.
- It's this young man.
- Thank you.

I'm very pleased. She'll be very
pleased.

- And you've done that for her.
- Yes. Yes.
- Good daughter.

I think what you're doing, you're
honouring...yeah?

- Yeah, she's... Yeah, she's done a
lot.

She's done a lot, a hell of a lot for
us,

so this is the least I could do.
- Yeah.

- It now feels solid. It feels like a
proper book.

I can open and close, it can be passed
around.

- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's awesome.

- I have made you something because I
couldn't let it go

without it being protected.

- Oh, wow.

Oh, oh, wow!

Oh, my gosh.

- And it's the colours of Trinidad.

- Yes, I was going to say that. Thank
you. Yeah.

Awesome.

Oh, wow. Wow.

Like a glove.
- Yeah.

- Thank you so much for that.

- You're more than welcome.

- Thank you.

- You take care now.

Don't keep looking at it, you've got
people to show! Go on!

All right.
- Thank you, guys.

Appreciate it.
- Take care. Bye-bye.
- Thank you.

The book is looking awesome. It's
brought it back.

It's a second life now to it, you
know?

It's my mum - that's her legacy to us.

That's her childhood, you know?

And so it was... It's very important
that we have something to preserve

and I know she'll be very happy.

- Retouching complete,

all the ocarina needs now is some
fine-tuning.

- Now just giving it a last polish
with a microfibre cloth.

The sheen on this surface has come up
beautifully with the polishing.

I've done everything I can to make it
look good,

but, with this, it actually needs to
play in tune

and I just hope now that it is going
to play as Barbara is hoping for.

- For Barbara, the instrument is a
treasured reminder of Auntie Joan

and the family's shared passion for
making music.

- Here she is. Hello.
- Hello.

- How are you doing?
- Hello, Jay.

- Hi, Barbara.

- Gosh.
- Gosh.

- Wow.
- You excited, yeah?

- Very excited. So excited, I can't
tell you.

And nervous, but, wow.

- OK. You want to see it, yeah?

- Yes, please.
- Yeah? OK.

- Yes, please.

Oh.

Look what you've done.

You can't see it.

Oh, Kirsten.

That's incredible.

Wow.

Thank you.

Oh, if Auntie Joan could see this,

she'd be delighted...

..as am I. Thank you so much.

It's stunning.

Wow.

- I'm dying to know if it plays.

- I'll play the first tune that I ever
played

for Auntie Joan when she gave it to me
-

it's Little Drummer Boy.

- Cor, blimey.

- It sounded beautiful!

- It sounded so good. All the husk is
gone.

- That was, wow, really, really
special.

- Look at you. That is so lovely to
see.

- Oh, gosh. Thank you so much.

- You are so welcome. It's been an
absolute pleasure.

- Oh, wow. Thank you.

- You take care now.
- Thank you very much.

- Thanks, Barbara. Bye.
- Thank you.
- Bye-bye.

- Absolutely overjoyed.

I'm so happy.

Auntie Joan, I think, if she could see
it

and know that we've kept it safe all
this time,

and now it's been repaired,

would be over the moon, I think, as
much as I am.

I've never heard it play as well as it
does now

that it's all back together again.

We'll get the family together so that
we can get all the musical

instruments and just have a good
family evening,

just like we used to do.

- If you have a treasured possession
that's seen better days

and you think the team can help,
please get in touch at...

..and join us in the repair shop.