The Repair Shop: Two sisters tear up over repaired antique
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The Repair Shop special saw an array of guests walk into the barn with the aim of getting their beloved family belongings repaired after they had been worn down and stopped working. Host Jay Blades stands behind his wooden desk and welcomes every guest with open arms, and the main aim is to make sure they walk away happy. Wednesday night saw sisters Sandra and Donna wanting their late parents’ stereogram repaired, and it was down to Mark Stuckey to make their wishes come true.
Welcoming the sisters to the barn, Jay said: “Hello, so this beautiful stereo takes me right back to my childhood days, so whose is it?”
Sandra explained: “It belonged to both my mum and my dad. Mum gave it to me before she got ill, she passed away last summer, so it means a lot to, well, all of us.
“I’m the guardian at the moment; it just represents so much about the joy that we had in our family around music, music was so important in our family when my mum, my dad, all of us coming up.
“We were always dancing, always singing, to lift spirits because, you know, life was tough. They came to this country with nothing, they would have had to save up for this.”
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Welcoming the sisters to the barn, Jay said: “Hello, so this beautiful stereo takes me right back to my childhood days, so whose is it?”
Sandra explained: “It belonged to both my mum and my dad. Mum gave it to me before she got ill, she passed away last summer, so it means a lot to, well, all of us.
“I’m the guardian at the moment; it just represents so much about the joy that we had in our family around music, music was so important in our family when my mum, my dad, all of us coming up.
“We were always dancing, always singing, to lift spirits because, you know, life was tough. They came to this country with nothing, they would have had to save up for this.”
Mark asked: “Was your father involved in music in any form?” to which Donna proudly replied: “Oh yeah, he opened the first music shop black-owned in Brixton!”
Jay asked the sisters: “So, Christmas time, what kind of music would be played at Christmas?” with the sisters informing him Nat King Cole.
Donna continued: “So, mum would be up at the crack of dawn to get everything ready, and we’d know Christmas, you could hear it, we said ‘Oh, it’s Christmas!’
“And then in the afternoon we would bust out the music, people would come over again (and) it’d be Ska, Blue Beat, you know all the latest tunes.
“I remember sitting on the stairs watching the adults dancing, my dad used to swirl my mum! When that record went click, and you heard that [cackling noise].”
The sisters informed Jay that the last time the stereo was played was in the late 60s or early 70s and that the turntable was broken.
The stereo was also missing its legs and had a huge hole in the top of it, with Donna recalling an incident with a candle.
After Mark fixed the stereogram and the sisters returned to the barn, Sandra explained: “I am really nervous.
“I’m really excited to see the gram working again would be like a Christmas miracle it would just be amazing!”
Jay welcomed them back and said: “Now this is a big part of Christmas, if Mark’s been able to do his magic on this, what’s it going to mean to you?”
Donna explained: “Every time the gram is playing, I’ll be able to see my sisters dancing in my father’s shoes, just having a good time, and it would just be fantastic. My heart is beating so fast at the moment!”
As Jay revealed the stereo, the sisters gasped in shock, and they both broke down in tears, with Donna exclaiming: “Oh, it’s got its legs back and the colour!”
Mark told them: “We haven’t finished yet,” to which he asked them to turn the stereo on, with the music slowly beginning to play.
The sister danced and sang slowly together as they cried at the stereo being restored, this left the experts in the barn, including Jay, also in tears.
Jay told them: “Now I know where that takes me back, but where does it take you guys back too?”
Donna revealed: “Christmas morning after church, and dad would start playing records and then he would call mum to dance and she’d be saying ‘I’m cooking, I can’t, I’m busy’, but eventually she would come and do a few steps with him.”
Sandra gratefully said once again: “Thank you with all my heart, I just can’t I can’t thank you enough for this.”
The Repair Shop Christmas Special is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
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