Digging deep to restore Julia's family toy farm

Author's special Repair Shop request

- BY MARK JEFFERIES

REPAIR Shop expert Will Kirk is on a personal mission in the Christmas special to help a woman who has played a big part in his family's life. Children's author Julia Donaldson visits the shop to see whether the team can restore her fragile and faded childhood toy farm.

Accompanied by Gavin & Stacey star Rob Brydon, who lent his voice to several TV adaptations of her work, the writer says: "It was my granny's. This is what my sister Mary and I played with when we were little girls.

"Sometimes the farm animals would escape through a gap in the field and I think we had zoo animals too, and sometimes we would play exciting adventures where some of the farm animals joined the zoo or some of the zoo animals invaded the farm."