The Herald - The Herald Magazine
HOW JAY BLADES REPAIRED HIS LIFE
JAY Blades is a shining example that anything is possible. Just six years ago, the restoration expert had all but given up on life. His marriage had broken down, his charity Out Of The Dark – where he taught disadvantaged youths to restore old furniture – had failed, and he was effectively homeless. Car keys in hand, he had plans to end it all.
It was only due to his exwife alerting the police to his disappearance and a good friend taking him in that he didn’t, he admits. Yet today, less than a decade on, the 51-year-old upcycler’s odds – and outlook– couldn’t be more different, thanks in part to his TV presenting gig on The Repair Shop. the BBC hit which, now in its eighth series, invites a team of skilled restoration experts to breathe new life into much-cherished family heirlooms.
“I pinch myself sometimes,” muses Blades, having fronted the show since its 2017 inception. “I’ve been working non-stop, so I haven’t really had the chance to take on board what I’ve done. But (when I do) it’s just like, ‘Jesus Christ. You’ve done a lot. You’ve achieved a lot’.
“There’s so much more I want to achieve; there’s loads of things I want to do.”
He’s not kidding. In the last year alone, he’s not only remained a constant on the small screen, he’s found time to publish his own inspirational memoir, received an MBE for his services to craft, grown his collaborative production company Hungry Jay Media, pushed on with social enterprise, got engaged to his long-term partner Lisa, and last, but by no means least, learnt to read.
The latter is to be documented in a one-off BBC One film, Jay Blades:
Learning To Read At 51. Brought up by his single mother on a Hackney council estate, Blades left school at 15 without any qualifications and nothing to his name – except a reputation as a great fighter.
Until now he has dealt with his limited literacy by simply requesting help from others – even down to accosting a stranger in the street to read him an important hospital letter.
So why embark on this journey now? “I wanted to learn to read, for one,” he lists. “And two, to inspire people, to get people like myself to then say, ‘You know what, I’m going to take the plunge’. But I jumped in