When the customer brings the item, they have to explain something of its history, why it is important to them and what they hope for out of the repair.
We’ll call it “the sob story”, for reasons that will become clear. It might be something like this (it’s a couple of real old tales, cobbled together and details changed):
This is the chamber pot from my late grandmother. She had 17 children, 11 of which died in childbirth. In her later years, she was confined to her bed for health reasons and had this under her bed and used it every day.
After she died, her possessions were moved to the attic, and it has been there for nearly 30 years.
I never knew my gran. She died two years before I was born. I think of her using this every day and it has become a very precious item for me and the family as it is the only item we have of hers.
As you can see, it has cracks and some chips. We’d love it to be repaired so it can be used again, and every time I can think of my grandmother.
During all this, the experts will be asking questions, making remarks like “she must have been a wonderful woman”, “it’s in safe hands” and so on.
The repair is done, and the person comes back to collect. The story gets repeated. As it is unveiled, there are tears and choked up gasps. There are always tears. Sometimes there are comments like “Gran will be looking down now admiring your work”.
And so on.
So our example is not real (we hope) but it could be.
There are so many things you would want to question here, but we won’t.
It does seem that the sob story has taken up more of the show as time has gone on, to the exclusion of actual repairs. Some can run for many minutes, with old photographs and clips and other stuff. Every item has to be linked with death. Every item…
This was a big reason for not watching any more. No doubt some people enjoy this aspect of the show, but many do not.
There have been accusations about the sob story, that at least some have been made up. We don’t know if it’s true, or if certain aspects are emphasised by the producers because it makes good telly. We could certainly believe that an item with a good sob story would stand more chance of being picked, even if the actual item and the links are a bit weak.