Make brews and mend

At a growing number of repair cafés across the country, skilled volunteers are fixing people's personal possessions for free. Express writer JANE WARREN, who visited one hub in the hope of saving her kitchen scales and rice cooker, discovers how they've also become a haven for communities

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T BEGINS with a donkey with a move-able head. A small red toy, its head reattached for the umpteenth time, wobbling sweetly on its delicate plastic neck as though dazed from its many surgical interventions. When I first see it, cradled in the hands of its delighted, elderly owner, I realise that this is far more than a queue of broken household items waiting their turn on the workbench.

In this hall on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Shipley, West Sussex, the monthly repair café is not just about screws, glue and sharpening blades. Here, broken memories find a new shape, too, restored amid conversation and companionship.

The little donkey has been owned by Madeleine Woods, 82, since she was four years old, having been given it on a rain-lashed caravan holiday in Cornwall while her sister was handed a matching toy parrot. The donkey had survived marriage, motherhood and the generations that followed. Only when Madeleine’s granddaughter pulled its head off had it finally succumbed.

‘And yet, after eight long months and hours of patient tinkering by volunteer Rob Blackburn — who tried more glues than most DIY fiddlers dare to imagine exist — here it was, upright and whole and wobbling delightfully once more.

Madeleine, who strokes it lovingly as if it were an adored pet, says: “I was quite resigned to never seeing it again. Rob even lost it for a bit!

“But he’s done ever so well. I’m going to keep it on a high shelf now.”

It is lovely to watch her delight at how this once trivial plastic toy has been transformed into an emblem of resilience.

“It’s made of vintage plastic,” said Rob of his longest ever repair. “One of the reasons I have so many glues is that it took five different types before I found the right solution. Madeleine has been back three times to check on its progress.”