Repair Shop bear tale made me sob
I’ve heard so many good things about Repair Shop but only caught my first episode this week. I immediately wanted to move into the thatched Hansel and Gretel house in the woods. And within minutes it had me in tears.
One lady brought in a muchcuddled teddy bear which belonged to her stepdad who had suddenly died three weeks previously. The teddy was oil-stained, furless, sightless and earless but a priceless link to the man she hadn’t had the chance to tell how important and special he’d been.
Such care went into the bear’s repair. And when the lady came back with two relatives, they all cried to see it restored so beautifully – and I cried with them.
Everyone loves a teddy bear, whether they’re two or 92. When I was born my Taid bought me a bear called Bruno, named after the Polish baker in the village.
I loved the bear. He was always there, sitting on my pillow or tucked under my arm as I slept. He had two glass dome eyes I always felt looked straight into mine.
He colluded with me when I secretly had a small transistor radio under my blankets and tried to listen to Radio Luxembourg without my parents cottoning on.
Bruno’s still up in my attic and is wearing a Wrexham football shirt, probably a new outfit he inherited when I started courting Colin.
My second favourite toy, a doll with rosebud lips and hand-knitted clothes called Anne, did not fare so well.
One day I decided Anne needed a good wash and took a Brillo pad to her hair, which fell out. I still loved her even though she was bald. But after she lost an eye and her leg fell off, Anne disappeared.
It’s funny how our most precious material things rarely are the most valuable. One of my prized possessions probably cost under one pound.
My late husband Colin was off to Switzerland and I asked him to go to a mountain and pick some Edelweiss flowers for me. He looked at me funny and said: “I’m going there to work.”
But when he came home, he gave me a little tin box with a black lid bearing a picture of beautiful white Edelweiss. For a long time the Edelweiss box contained my engagement