Catch up TV

Series 8: Episode 9

Jay Blades and the team bring four treasured family heirlooms, and the memories they hold, back to life. \n \nA daunting task has ceramics restorer Kirsten Ramsay worried. Jayne Marston has brought in her parent’s four-foot-high, heavy stone bird bath in the hope Kirsten can preserve it. For over 60 years, wherever Jayne’s family moved the bird bath would follow, uprooted and replaced at the new house with great effort by her dad. Jayne has lost both her parents over the last three years and during a long illness her mum would take comfort watching the birds at the bath. Jayne’s mum made her promise to keep feeding the birds and to keep water in the bath, telling Jayne 'whenever the birds are near so am I'. However, the bird bath is now showing its age, and with a huge crack threatening to break it in two, Kirsten’s restoration skills will be pushed to their limit. \n \nDavid Burville faces a musical challenge: Abbas Qureshi and his son Asad have brought in a beautiful but battered harmonium in search of someone who can restore its voice. Abbas’s musical career started as a boy in rural Pakistan, where he first sang on stage at the age of eight. After moving to the UK in 1965, he carried on performing and formed a band in the 1980s that played all over England. But now his harmonium is broken, leaking air and out of tune. Abbas hasn’t been able to find another harmonium that complements his voice as well as this one, so it’s now down to David to restore the perfect harmony between musician and instrument. \n \nA very well-travelled piece of history is next to wind its way up the path to the barn. Belonging to Harry Dymond and his daughter Kathryn, it’s a sailor’s logbook known as a Continuous Certificate of Discharge, a record of all the ships served on and all the sailings made by Harry’s professional seaman grandfather Frank, including one very famous and ill-fated ship’s passage aboard the Titanic. 'Titanic Frank', as he is known to the family, survived the disaster and commanded one the last lifeboats to leave the sinking ship. Frank’s original logbook went down with the Titanic, but this replacement records the fateful journey and went on to accompany Frank for the rest of his life. The barn's resident book-binding expert Christopher Shaw brings it back from the brink, restoring a treasured heirloom the family can be proud of once more. \n \nFinally, an ageing teddy from the 1950s needs some TLC from bear experts Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch. Teddy has been with Maria Naylor since her family’s flight from Hungary after Russia took control of their homeland in 1956. Leaving in the dead of night with just the clothes on their back, Maria, her parents and her siblings found themselves in a refugee camp in Austria. On seeing the children without any toys, another young girl gave them Teddy to keep. Teddy travelled with the family across Europe until they settled in Manchester. After her sister’s recent death, Maria is hoping Julie and Amanda can give him a new lease of life in his later years.

Source: BBC 2