Episode 10

Hoping to strike a chord with stringed instrument restorer Julyan Wallis, the barn’s first project has given Gary Miles from Mold in north Wales plenty of teenage kicks. Given to him by his father Eddie when Gary was just 14, his electric guitar was his pride and joy growing up. Gary’s dad played guitar in a band for several years with none other than Ringo Starr – and while Ringo went on to slightly bigger things, Eddie himself continued to perform. His band – The Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group – enjoyed significant success, being immortalised in bricks and mortar on the legendary Cavern Club’s wall of fame in Liverpool. The guitar was Eddie’s gift to Gary, and the pair would jam together at home right up until Eddie died. Years later, leant up against a wall, the guitar slipped, causing major damage, and with the electrics also no longer working, Gary is desperate to have the instrument restored to honour his dad. Jules gets cracking, adjusting the frets, replacing the lost wood and preparing it for its musical comeback.

Next to arrive is Jo-Anne Thompson from Stamford in Lincolnshire, with some family jewellery from afar for the attention of master goldsmith Richard Talman. The gold bangle she has brought to the barn was the cherished possession of her grandmother, who lived in Guyana in South America and never took it off. Jo-Anne’s parents left Guyana for the UK in 1962 as part of the Windrush Generation, and Jo-Anne was born soon after, with the family living in just one room in a shared house. Conditions were so poor that her parents decided to send her back to Guyana to live with her grandmother where she could flourish. Grandmother Louise became like a second mum from when Jo-Anne was only two. When Louise died in 2006, her children decided the bangle should come Jo-Anne’s way, and just like her grandmother, she wore it constantly for nine years. However, the bangle started cracking every time she opened or closed it to take it on and off, and it is now badly fractured. Richard must come up with a way to reinforce the fragile bracelet without damaging the lettering so it can be worn again with pride.

From Leeds, Phil Rakusen brings in the most fragile of family heirlooms for the stellar skills of leather expert Suzie Fletcher. In Jewish culture, when a boy becomes a man at 13, he has his bar mitzvah and is usually handed a leather tallit bag, which typically contains a prayer shawl, a yarmulke, or skull cap, and a daily prayer book. The tallit bag first belonged to Phil’s great-grandfather and is over 100 years old. It was passed down within the family to Phil’s grandfather and then his father. But the bag is in a sorry state, with the front split and completely worn away. This is Suzie’s first tallit bag, so the pressure is on. She sets about restoring its strength, relining it, replacing the studs and rejuvenating the lettering to get this sacred pouch back to its best.

Finally, Deirdre Fry from Staplehurst has brought along a lucky find, relating to a skill her family has traded in for centuries, and which she hopes stonemason Richard Fraser can rekindle. Made by her grandfather Charlie at the Kent brickyard his family owned for six generations, these ‘Kent peg tiles’ were the very last tiles made there before the brickyard closed down in the mid-1970s. Surprisingly, Deirdre has only had them in her possession for six weeks! By chance, at a local farm sale, she and her sister saw some items for sale from her grandfather’s brickyard. It was a huge lot, but Deirdre spotted some writing on the tiles – in particular, a curly C Charlie used to make. On closer inspection, she could see they were made by him and the very last to be made at the brickyard! Richard’s challenge is to fill the missing pieces and reinstate the faded inscriptions on these touchstones of a historic family trade.