The BBC’s Repair Shop is back for a brand new season, with more members of the public visiting Jay Blades and his team of experts with the hopes of restoring their family heirlooms and antiques.
On tonight’s episode (Wednesday 11th May), the Repair Shop cast have their work cut out with restoring one of their biggest ever timepieces, which hasn’t worked in over 30 years. A job so big, horologist Steve Fletcher had to call upon his son and apprentice Fred for extra help.
Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Fletcher reveals what it was like to work with his son on the transformation, and the challenges they stumbled upon.
“One of the lovely things is that my son was involved in the repair as well and did some filming with me. I’m so proud of that fact. I’m proud of all my children, but it’s so lovely to have one of them working with me on the show,” he said.
“It was Fred’s first time on the show and he took to it like a duck to water. He was so good. I could not have done what he did when I was his age. So I’m very proud of that.”
He continued: “Fred is one of my apprentices, so I do work with him, but working on the biggest indoor clock we’ve ever worked on and the first clock of its time that was completely made of wood, there were some issues that we had to get over.
“But we managed that, and I certainly couldn’t have done it on my own. There’s too much lifting and heavy work.”
The horological wonder, which stands at 3 metres tall, was designed and built by Monica Norton’s father Ron, a cabinet manufacturer by trade who had always dreamed of building wooden clocks.
It was originally built for a display at the World Trade Centre in Dallas, but more than 30 years ago, the clock was taken apart, packed away in huge crates and shipped back to the UK. It hadn’t worked since.
Monica and her husband Andrew wanted to revive Ron’s legacy and donate the clock to a museum for all to see – something which put a lot of pressure on Steve and Fred.
“We always want to do the best job we can in the barn, and with anything that’s mechanical, obviously we need it to work properly as well. So we have that pressure on us to make sure that it’s going to last for another 100 years. So you have to make sure we’re doing the job right,” Steve explained.
“But on this particular clock that was made by Ron Woodford – he was just the most amazing craftsman – it was made to his own design. There were parts of the clock that I’ve never seen before, which worked incredibly well, and it’s lovely to know that this clock is going to go on public display as well in the future at the British Horological Institute Museum.”
Asked if they faced any issues along the way, Steve admitted he wasn’t sure the clock was actually going to work until the very last minute.
He said: “The challenge was to not only to get the clock working, but to make sure that we kept the old finish. It was important to try and keep the original finish on the woodwork, but also revive it as well.
“It hadn’t worked for over 30 years and had been packed in a box for that time, and we didn’t know whether the wood had moved at all, or whether the clock was going to work at all because of this strange design mechanism. It was sort of unproven.
“So we didn’t know whether the clock had worked really well before or not. And it wasn’t until we finished getting the clock together and testing that we realised that actually it works very, very well and efficiently.”
Additional reporting by Lauren Morris.
The Repair Shop airs on BBC One on Wednesdays at 8pm. See what else is on with our TV Guide or check out our dedicated Entertainment hub.
