HOW FLIPPING FABULOUS!

‘Pancake Dog’ — a battery-operated 1960s mechanical toy whose eyes and ears pop up and whose stove lights up red as his pan moves to flip burgers — has never made a pancake in his life. But to Sue Gent, that’s his name, and he brings back bittersweet memories of playing with her younger brother Andrew, who died a year after being involved in a car crash when he was just 25.

Sue’s father now suffers from Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, and Sue hoped that, if Pancake Dog was mended, the toy might spark his own recollections of those happy days. Mechanical mastermind Steve Fletcher removed the rust in the battery compartment and made repairs to the mechanism, while cuddly toy restorers Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch made new clothes and fresh fur for the dog’s head and ears — ready for Sue to take him home to her dad.