The Repair Shop's Will Kirk at Farnham Literary Festival 2025

Tindle News

As part of Farnham's Literary Festival, UCA and the Farnham Maltings presented 'Restore + Repair'. TV personality Will Kirk – from BBC's Repair Shop – discussed his book 'Restore',  followed by a book signing, and a talk about all things Farnham Repair Cafe, led by the cafe's founder - UCA's Martin Charter.

Transcript

00:00You know, because you do stuff outside of a repair shop, as I understand it.

00:09So, what have been your favourite restorations, you know, personally, what's given you, you

00:16know, what are some of the examples that have given you the most pleasure?

00:20At the repair shop or just in...

00:22Just in general.

00:23Whatever you want.

00:24Well, emotionally it would always be at the repair shop, because in my own workshop I

00:30don't tend to ask people, what does this chair mean to you?

00:33So I get paid.

00:36Whereas at the repair shop, I mean, years ago there was a rocking horse that came in

00:41and a lady restored the rocking horse with her husband back in the 80s and underneath

00:47the saddle he had signed his name and she hadn't seen that since the 80s and she bought

00:52this rocking horse in to have it fixed and Susie made a new saddle for it, but one they

00:59could actually take off and see what's on the inside.

01:01Anyway, she came to pick it up, she saw his writing there, floods of tears.

01:07So that for me, I mean, I love an emotional story, but I also like a challenging fix.

01:12People keep on coming to the barn with boxes of wet green wood.

01:17It's like, oh, I've got this bit of furniture I love so much which I've been using in the

01:24garden to prop up my plant pot or something.

01:28So then to try to dry something out in a barn dry enough that I can actually work in it.

01:35Those are the things that keep happening.

01:38But, you know, thankfully so far I've always managed to get them done.

01:41I do actually like things that have a great historical meaning behind them.

01:54It's really made to last.

01:56I mean, if you buy a really cheap set of chisels, I remember when I went to university I bought

02:03some really cheap ones because I didn't really know what I was investing in.

02:06And if you try to sharpen them, they almost melt like plastic because there's such a mixture

02:12of alloys and all sorts of rubbish in there.

02:14So you kind of get what you pay for, but you can pay very little for something very old.

02:19So markets, there's a market round here I went to not too long ago in the car park of

02:24Wake, not Wake Street, but somewhere else and they have a market on the weekends.

02:29So yeah, markets.

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