Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
My marriage ended, I was homeless.. in a dark place
TV’S Jay Blades considered suicide
REPAIR Shop presenter Jay Blades has revealed how he came close to taking his own life after he hit a rough patch five years ago.
The TV star, 50, struggled after the charity he was running collapsed, his wife left him and he lost his home all at the same time.
Jay considered suicide, after his organisation Out of the Dark – where he taught disadvantaged youths to restore old furniture – failed. He recalls: “Everything came at once.
“My marriage had broken down, I didn’t have any money and the people that I employed I had to make redundant. The state that I was in I would have taken my own life, and I came close.
“I got in my car and decided to drive. I had no vision of where I was going. I ended up in Wolverhampton, and for a couple of nights I slept in my car.
“My wife was so alarmed she reported me missing and the police found me.”
Jay and his now ex-wife, Jade, share daughter, Zola, age 13. He was taken in by a pal in Wolverhampton, where he still lives with his partner of four years. He went on to set up Jay & Co, a furniture restoration business in the city. Three years ago he began hosting The Repair Shop, now in its sixth series.
In the show, Jay and his team of restoration experts take beloved but battered objects brought in by the public and restore them. Brought up by a single mum on a council estate in Hackney, East London, with his younger brother, Jay learned restoration because his family did not have enough money to buy new things.
And he puts those skills to great use in The Repair Shop, which he describes as “feel-good TV”.
In tonight’s episode, Liz Cotters from Essex brings in a portrait of her mother Alice, then 19, which was painted for her father when he was serving in the Second World War. Art conservator Lucia Scalisi patches it up. Jay said: “Liz’s dad died in 2015. Liz was quite emotional because her mum died quite suddenly about a month ago. She was 93. “When Liz was cleaning her stuff out, she found this painting. She really wanted her mum’s face cleaned up because it had marks on it, and hang it as a tribute.”
The Repair Shop, BBC1 tonight, 8pm.