Original subtitles

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Here at The Repair Shop, we take amazing objects from the past...

Oh, wow. Look at that!

..and bring them back to life.

There's so much history that could've been lost there.

You've got to have a love to do this type of work.

It's absolutely a passion. Beautiful.

But these things aren't just precious to the people

we fix them for. Wow!

I don't want to cry, but, oh, my God.

Heck of a history, isn't it?

They also tell a bigger story about Britain...

These went out of service in 1938.

Aha! It's from my family business, which started in 1862.

Bagpipes. Over 100 years old.

..our history back then...

They're just about the most modern design bikes

that I've seen for ages. And it looks extremely sporty.

..and who we are now.

Yes!

I'm Jay Blades.

I've no idea where to start on this.

..some of our favourite items in the barn...

THEY CHEER

Over 100 years old. And still it stands.

..unlocking how the past...

Look, look, look! Where? Did you see that? Look!

You've literally just unlocked the secret.

Now that's a story.

..shapes the way we live now.

I can feel the memories she feels from it.

The story that is behind, this is what's kept it alive.

# If you gave me a chance, I would take it... #

At The Repair Shop, we love to listen to music while we work.

And music has always been a big part of my life.

Thank you, sir.

These days, you can stream any tune you want almost instantly.

But it wasn't always that way.

Today, we're going to rewind...

# I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really... #

# Heaven, I'm in... #

..and take a look back at how modern music has been shaped by

technologies of the past...

# My heart beats so that I can hardly speak... #

NEWSREEL: These girls believe in hiking to music,

so they rigged up this gramophone hammock.

THEY LAUGH

# We're out together dancing cheek to cheek. #

APPLAUSE

Old-fashioned turntables and retro musical devices

And luckily, at The Repair Shop,

we've got Steve Kember to fix them.

like this one owned by Sue and son Richard.

Hiya. I'm Will. Hi, Will, I'm Sue. Nice to meet you, Sue. I'm Steve.

Hi, Steve. Richard. Richard, hi, I'm Will.

Hi, Richard. Richard. Nice to meet you. So what have we got here?

This is my grandfather's musical box.

It's a very loved item in our family. OK.

It has about 20 of these discs that you place inside it. Yeah.

And sadly, probably due to wear and tear, maybe, possibly...

That was a pointed look, wasn't it? Yeah! "Wear and tear"!

Yeah. I might be partly responsible. ..over the years of grandchildren

playing with it, it's not in the best state now

and it doesn't play properly.

So how long has it been in your family?

My grandfather purchased it, I would think, in the early 1900s. Yes.

When my grandparents died, it came to my dad.

Yeah. And my mum, she regularly used to dance around to it

and make us all very embarrassed, but she loved...

They do that, mums, don't they? No, she was wonderful.

She loved to dance. If we would play this, she would start doing

her Sugar Plum Fairy dance around the room.

I know that when I was little, it used to have a...

It wasn't an elephant, but it was like a curly motif

of something white. Motif on the top. Yeah, yeah.

Got a nice split there for Will to do that...

Oh, sorry! ..and keep him up late tonight.

It is very beautiful. And even when it plays badly,

it's quite a magical sound. Yeah.

You awkwardly have to try and place the disc in. Yeah.

And then this has to click.

HANDLE CLICKS

Bit of a crank.

It's always been stop-start. You know, very jittery.

When I hear this play, I have memories of...

and pointing her toes and telling us how she used to do ballet and...

SHE INHALES SHARPLY

And it...

SHE CRIES

Sorry. Sorry. It's OK.

I really, really would like to be able to play it

to my grandchildren and just to talk about Nana Katie

because she died in 2013.

And, yeah... So, I'm hoping you can perhaps...

..make it work and... So am I! ..fulfil that dream.

That would be wonderful.

Well, you've left it in the best hands. We have. Thank you so much.

No pressure, then. Thank you so much.

Thanks. I'll do my best. Good luck. I believe you will, definitely.

Thanks, then. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.

It feels strange leaving it, really, because I always think of Mum

in the same context as the musical box, so it's a bit like

leaving your nana here.

Music boxes started being mass-produced in

the mid-19th century.

Just imagine - before that, the only way you could listen to music

was for someone to play it to you live.

They came in a variety of shapes and sizes.

The most common types used cylinders,

with precisely placed pins that plucked a tune

on a metal comb.

This catalogue from 1901 shows Sue's model,

the Gordon, on sale for £4 and five shillings -

over £500 in today's money.

Not surprisingly, any mechanical device that old needs maintenance

to keep it playing for another 100 years.

I'm going to take the mechanism from the case, strip it down,

clean all the parts, locate the defects, correct them

and put it back together again,

and then it will sing beautifully.

It's easier to say that than actually do it

cos there's...a few little problems to cure on the way.

..it's a little piece of history.

I'm doing it for the first time.

It's sort of an untouched machine.

You don't know what you're going to find. We can get the motor

and governor in an ultrasonic tank of clock cleaning fluid.

that has accumulated, which is degrading the performance.

And it's going to come out beautifully clean.

Music boxes like Sue's were made to look as good as they sounded,

so it's over to furniture restorer Will to bring the case back to life.

I call him the King of Veneers,

and not just because of his shiny teeth.

The first job is to replace the decorative inlay on the lid.

So I'm just cutting by eye and see if it fits.

And it's actually a perfect fit the first time round.

Already, that's made a massive difference.

If I can glue those in, I just want to make sure that this new piece

There might be a few pieces of wood that are blocking it

from being completely flat. I'm going to pick those out now,

and once I'm satisfied that everything fits perfectly,

I can glue it all in.

And I can move on to the filling and the polishing.

Mechanical parts often need clock cleaning fluid

to get them running again.

Phew!

It's nasty stuff, so Steve's relocated to the outdoor workshop.

All the congealed oil and the old paint has gone

and we've got these star wheels here.

You can still see the odd piece of oily fluff in there.

Some objects just need a good clean.

Others require major surgery.

To hear music the way it was originally intended,

it's vital to play it at the right speed.

So without the governor mechanism, we'll be in a right spin.

I'm suspicious of the governor springs here.

I think they're too strong.

When the motor rotates, the governor vanes fly out like this.

If the springs are too tight, the governor vanes won't expand.

There'll be no air resistance and the thing will just

sort of go like the clappers.

So, I'm going to time one revolution of the disc

and see how long it takes. So, off we go.

One revolution of the disc is in the order of

40-something seconds. If it's less than that, obviously,

the music sounds ever so fast.

If it's slow, it sounds lethargic and not too great.

So, we need to be very precise with the song.

And so, there we are. We got 32 seconds.

It is too fast. We have the solution to the problem -

put a different set of springs so that we approach

our 40-second rotation time.

It seems that everything has dried properly, which is great.

It already looks like a different box.

This new piece in the middle has some areas round the outside of it

that need to be filled along with split on the top of the box.

I'm going to fill those now and once they've dried,

I can then start cleaning the box.

So, now I've got the timing hopefully right,

I'm going to concentrate on a little bit of maintenance on the discs.

The music disc, a distant relative of the records we're familiar with,

was invented in 1886.

Cylinders were more expensive to produce,

and if you wanted to change the tune, harder to swap.

With a playing time of 40 seconds or so, many musical styles

were available, from hymns and classical

to popular musical numbers.

Like their later vinyl cousins,

manufacturers would rush to release the most commercial tunes.

Often, they could be sung along to at home.

Here in the barn, we love it when we get musical objects playing again.

Nothing is as powerful as music for bringing back

happy family memories.

But as well as getting the insides of an object working,

it's just as important to give the outside a perfect polish.

I can see that lovely colour, a lovely grain

I really hope that this is going to look exactly like it did

when Sue first saw it.

NOTE PLAYS GENTLY

Hey, Steve. Oh! Look at that. Cor, you clever old thing.

Look at that. I can't wait to hear this working, Steve. I know.

I hope it's as good as your case.

Lovely. Thank you very much.

No worries, pal. Cheers, then. Bye now.

JAY: Putting something as beautiful as a Polyphon back together

is what we live for at The Repair Shop.

But the best bit is giving it back to its owner.

Hello. Hi. Hello. How lovely to meet you.

Likewise. And once again. Nice to see you again. You all right?

Lovely, yes. Good, thank you. Hiya. Hi, Steve. Hiya.

Nice to see you. Look at that smile. I know!

Anything's going to be a positive. Right. Yeah.

THEY EXHALE DEEPLY

You ready? Uh-huh. Yeah. OK.

Oh! That is beautiful.

That is absolutely wonderful.

Thank you so much, Will. Thank you, Will.

An amazing job. Really, really appreciate it. It's wonderful.

Beautiful, really. Pressure's off me, then.

Oh, look. It's all ready to play. It is.

MUSIC BOX PLAYS CLEARLY

Unbelievable.

That is unbelievable.

Thank you.

Oh, my mum would be here now. She would, wouldn't she?

Oh, you're wonderful!

Thank you. How clever you are.

Oh, don't... That is absolutely amazing. Yeah.

It's amazing. I remember hearing it like that and I can tell you now

that my grandchildren will hear the story behind it. Yeah.

And that will include this experience, too. Yeah.

I mean that. Thank you. Yeah.

All right. Well, you can take this home now. Can we?

Rich, I'll let you do the honours. Thank you.

OK. I'll try not to drop it.

Bye. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye.

Well done, you. Well! God. Yes. Eh?

The first thing I thought about when I saw that box again was my mum.

And when I heard the music playing, I could see her right there dancing,

and it really made me feel such happiness.

But at the turn of the century, the music box's charms

were replaced by the latest tech.

Richard and Leslie from Cornwall are arriving at the barn

with the music box's ingenious rival.

Hello. How are we doing? Fine, thanks.

I'm Jay. Jay, I'm Richard. All right, Richard? How we doing?

I'm very well, thank you. And you? So what have we got in the bag?

Well, it's quite small. I would say it looks like a camera.

Yeah, it does indeed, doesn't it?

Is it a camera? Shall I open it? Yes, please. OK.

Whoa. OK.

Don't tell me this is a record player. It's a record player, innit?

It is. Oh, that is cool. Tim! You've got to see this.

This is one for you, mate. Have a look at this.

Gramophone expert Tim has been hooked on vintage record players

since 1963, when his father bought him his first one

at a jumble sale.

It's a record player, but a portable one.

And you wind it up...

TIM CHUCKLES

..like that. Yeah.

But when you put the record on, and I put this on here...

RECORD STARTS AND STOPS

Cor blimey. ..it grinds to a halt. Yeah. Yeah.

If I might intervene at this point. Yeah, please. You're the expert.

This is called a Peter Pan.

This particular model were made only in 1924.

And almost certainly it will have a Swiss motor in it...

Right. ..with a single 2cm spring,

which has probably just about had it. Yeah. Right.

Because it's 95 years old isn't it, at least? Yeah. Yeah.

So how come you guys have got this? What's the history behind it?

It was given to me by my father. Right. And he told me stories

about taking it out on picnics. OK.

He was courting my mother at the time and he would

play these records, perhaps some Ella Fitzgerald or something,

on a portable record player.

But I think it was given to him by my grandfather, his father.

OK. He was a naval captain.

So he would go from Liverpool down to Southampton,

then down to Tenerife and then the Ivory Coast in West Africa.

He had it and then he passed it to your dad

And so, obviously, in time, when time's right... Yeah.

..I'm just dying to, you know, pass it on.

And it did work. I think our daughters might have had

something to do with it.

So, when was the last time you heard it playing, anyway? Oh...

Properly? Oh, probably about... Properly. 20 or 30 years ago. Yeah.

So, what do you reckon, Tim? Can we sort this out?

Well, if the motor's all there inside... Maybe?

Yeah. OK. Yeah.

Thank you. And leave it with us. OK. We'll get it sorted.

Going to happen... All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

In 1877, Thomas Edison played back recorded sound for the first time

on his new invention, the phonograph.

Using a stylus and a diaphragm

etching into a tinfoil-wrapped cylinder, he recorded

a nursery rhyme.

Here's his assistant recreating that moment in 1933.

Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was white as snow.

Emile Berliner pioneered rubber and shellac records in 1887,

replacing the cylinder and creating the gramophone.

The first models went on sale in 1895,

creating a new phenomena, which we take for granted today -

listening on demand.

Players continue to evolve,

becoming louder, smaller and portable,

like Richard's Peter Pan.

But when you take them all apart, they work much the same,

reproducing music from the grooves on a record using a sound box

like this one.

Something very peculiar has been done to this.

Someone seems to have put what looks like a cardboard -

..we can see, possibly, what's inside there.

Plop that in there. So, then we can lift the whole diaphragm,

stylus bar and needle holder away,

and then, let's see what's under here.

Aha!

Now, that's what you would expect to see.

I don't know why somebody would've put that in there.

If they were trying to sort of quieten the volume down,

you would put... You know, you'd jam something into the end

of the horn, literally. And, yes, that is where the expression,

"Put a sock in it!" comes from.

As well as a sound box and horn,

every gramophone needs a mechanism to make the record turn around.

RECORD PLAYER CLICKS

Yes, it shouldn't be making that clicking, churning noise.

So that suggests there's something stuck inside there

on one of the gears. What it is, well, we shall find out

when we get it apart.

Right, then. A tricky little thing to get in here

cos there's so little room for manoeuvre.

Ah, there we go.

Let's lift the top off the motor

and let us see what we've got inside here.

Ah! Now...

..you can probably see, here is one old needle.

You always find these inside the boxes of gramophones,

and that, jammed against that, will have been probably what's making

that strange crunching, grinding noise

as it was running round. So I'm glad we found that.

One thing you can't do, that's a mistake that people often make,

is they put a lot of fresh oil on

without cleaning all the old stuff off first.

And that is basically like polishing a car without washing it first.

While Tim is top of the pops when it comes to fixing gramophones,

anything made of leather is a case for saddle maker Suzie Fletcher.

Suzie. Yeah?

A favour. OK. Well...

You see the handle on this little Peter Pan gramophone?

Yeah. It's broken. OK.

How about if I make another handle,

the same thickness of leather as this?

I've got some black leather

that I think will do the trick quite nicely.

That'll look lovely. You're a genius. Oh, I wouldn't go that far.

THEY LAUGH

I've used the old handle to give me a guide to making the pattern.

So now I've finished creasing it,

the next stage is to slide the tips underneath the bracket,

which could be interesting.

There we have it.

The heart of a clockwork gramophone is its mainspring,

a cord metal ribbon that provides the power to the mechanism.

The major challenge with any of these things is not to

get them to go round, it's to get it to do it at a steady 78

for two and a half to three minutes.

Well, that's down to the gramophone.

Gramophone records were spun at a speed of 78 revolutions

per minute, referred to as 78s.

They came in two sizes.

The 10-inch could play free minutes.

And a 12 inch, four minutes per side.

The gramophone was such a hit that composers and writers

wrote songs to fit exactly on one side of a disc.

And that's still the length DJs and music fans love to this day.

There we go.

So, and...

Lastly, of course, we need the governor.

Oh. Oh, fiddlesticks.

One of these governor springs, this bit here...

..is broken away.

The governor's spinning weights regulate the turntable

and ensure it stays at a steady 78 revolutions per minute.

Luckily, I have got an assortment of spare governor springs here.

I bought these at an antique fair earlier this year.

Bit of a nuisance, but better it's broken now than when

we've got it all back together

and we're trying to play records on it.

The acid test now - wind her up

and will it actually work?

Oh, yes. She's turning.

And the turntable...

Well, that looks pretty good.

It's doing a nice, consistent speed.

And like a perfectly spinning turntable,

The Repair Shop is at its best when everybody's skills

are working in harmony.

That's much better than the original would've been when it was new.

Well, perhaps not, but I did clean this up a little bit

because it was a bit dirty. That handle,

that is absolutely splendid. Oh, you are a genius.

Thank you very much. Great, Suzie. See you later. Thank you so much.

Now...

..all we've got to do is put the works in it.

Whilst we love working together as a team, the most important thing

is what the owners Richard and Leslie think.

to our gramophone.

Good afternoon, Leslie. You too.

Well, I'll take the cover off.

Now, well, do you want to open it up and assemble it? Yeah, sure.

OK.

It's different. Oh, that looks totally different. Yeah.

And needle's there. It still goes together in the same way.

Oh, yeah, it still goes together.

As to what was inside, a lot of the problem was

old gramophone needles that had fallen down inside

and were sticking into the gear. Really? Is that right? Fancy that.

Now, we had a think about what you might like. Ah.

Oh, wow. And there we go.

MUSIC: Sentimental Journey by Ella Fitzgerald

Lovely. Wow. A little birdie told us you like this one. Yeah. Oh.

Right. That is one of your dad's... Your dad liked this. Yeah.

Oh, yes.

THEY CHUCKLE

# If that whistle

# Baby, I'm coming home. #

APPLAUSE

Well done, Tim. Thank you. Thank you. Well done.

It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure.

If it makes you happy... You're a remarkable man.

A remarkable man. Well, it beats going out and getting

a proper job, doesn't it?

So, how does it feel to hear Ella Fitzgerald singing

Sentimental Journey? I'm over the moon. I'm over the moon.

And Sentimental Journey is such an apt piece of music to play anyway,

considering, you know, what this is all about. Hm.

It's remarkable that it's been able to be restored and we can listen

to it again and we can pass it on to our grandson.

As long as you're happy. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our pleasure. Bye-bye. Our pleasure. Bye.

Safe journey.

are also owners of an important music-playing device...

..something that had a bigger effect on our listening habits

than the CD, the cassette or even the MP3.

You must be Lynne. Hiya, yes. How we doing, Albert? Hello.

Yeah. You all right?

Bit out of breath. Oh, bless you.

Well, take a seat. Thank you very much.

You're more than welcome. What have you got here?

A dilapidated radio.

An old GEC.

Oh. Yeah. Mark, if you don't mind joining me.

It will be the perfect job for Mark Stuckey,

whose love for all things electrical started when he took

his parents' TV apart aged nine.

Hello. Tell me about it, then, Albert.

Well, when me and the wife, Eileen, started courting,

we'd been courting about a year... OK. ..and while we was downtown,

we saw these. I think it was in Boots.

They used to sell all sorts at that time.

And it was up there and it were £2.50.

And me and the wife clubbed together and we bought it. Right.

And we used to take it all over with us, you know,

in the car and get out the car, go on the beach.

Once we got on the beach and this were going,

everybody started to come towards us.

THEY LAUGH

Yeah. So this radio has been like the life of the party

for a lot of people and also the family. It has. It has.

It used to go on holiday with us as well. Yeah.

It's had a good life. It's had a good life.

It's had a brilliant life.

And it's lasted for years and years.

And in 19... I think it were 1985, it just stopped.

And I couldn't get it to go.

And a nephew of mine, he fiddles about with electrics and that,

and he got it going. Right. Those on there, my nephew...

They're off of toothbrushes. No!

They are.

THEY LAUGH

So that's what he did to get it going.

I used to have it in the greenhouse with me. Yeah.

And two years ago, it stopped,

and it was two years to the day when Eileen passed away.

She were an absolute ace. Oh, bless. And...

I really do miss her.

It's all right. It's all right.

And it's never gone since.

So it's very precious to you, isn't it? It is.

Yeah.

I just wondered if you could do anything with it

and get it repaired, so I can get it back in my greenhouse. Yeah.

We'll get this sorted for you. Our pleasure. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Pleasure to meet you. You will look after it, won't you?

Of course I would. Don't worry. Thank you. You take care now.

Cheers. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, then.

I would love it to get repaired cosmetically and sympathetically,

so we could probably get Steve on these bits.

Yeah. Everybody's going to be on this one.

So, it's over to you to get that working. Thank you very much.

In the UK, radio became mainstream in the 1920s.

Marconi, one of the early pioneers, set up his transmitters in Essex.

And on 15th June 1920 transmitted famous opera singer

Dame Nellie Melba, singing live from Chelmsford.

In 1922, the BBC was formed.

And in that year, the first BBC broadcast was transmitted

from Marconi House, London.

2LO Marconi House, London calling. 2LO, Marconi...

Radio brought the world into the home, and it had the ability

hundreds of musical artists from across the globe.

The technology also transformed the music itself.

With better reproduction of vocals and individual instruments,

artists such as Ella Fitzgerald

and bandleaders like Duke Ellington were made famous by this new media.

As well as an electronics expert,

Mark is also a big fan of detective novels

and treats every investigation like Sherlock Holmes.

Looking at Albert's radio internally for the very first time,

I can see there are a couple of things already

the long wave coil.

And I can see there's numerous components which will be

needed to be replaced for safety anyway.

Like all good detectives, Mark's secret to solving a mystery

is to take the whole thing apart, bit by bit.

So how are we doing, Mark? Yeah, fine.

OK. These, we call them capacitors.

And there's about a dozen or so I'm going to have to replace.

And, effectively, I'm changing them for little ones like this.

All right. Cool. So you've got a bit of work to do, then.

I've got a fair amount of work to do. All right.

Let me get that case off you. OK. Thank you.

Get started on that. There we go. Thank you. Enjoy that.

I will do, yeah.

The capacitors enable the radio to tune in to particular frequencies.

So, applying the voltmeter against one of the leads

to the transistor, in reality, I'm expecting to get a voltage.

in the wire, which I didn't initially see.

It's like a whodunnit. Somebody's done a murder

and you're now looking for the suspect.

In this case, the murder - the transistor's been snuffed out,

there's no voltage present,

and I'm going to find the culprit, the smoking gun,

and I think I may have found it.

But just like real detective work,

fixing a radio is hardly ever an open-and-shut case.

Hm. It's trying to pick up.

There might be another break somewhere.

Now, there's a lot more to do with this. This is a sick radio.

One of the problems we face in The Repair Shop

is where to source parts.

But clockwork genius Steve Fletcher can always be relied on

to find some random bits and bobs from his box.

I've found lots of components -

a lid off a pot, various brass bits,

this lamp stand that I'm going to turn the outside of.

I'm just about to start the knurling of the lamp stand

that's going to be the outside of the tuning knob.

or anything, actually, just to give it some grip.

That's brilliant. That worked really, really well.

Very, very pleased with that.

knew so much about old handles?

It doesn't look very healthy, does it? No.

What we didn't want to do, we didn't want

to have a brand-new one on here.

So this is from a similar radio.

OK. So that's the original.

That one's the donor, which is slightly too big,

but it does look the part.

I want you to work your magic. If anybody can, I know you can.

OK. So, let's make this one special for Albert.

Yeah, no problem.

as possible, reinforcing original handles like this,

and strengthening the back with more leather.

With hand sewing, it is, overall, a much better quality finish.

It just takes such a long time.

Steve, meanwhile, is still working on the tuning knob.

There we go, we're almost there.

That's the... That's the centre boss for the tuning knob.

Just got to do a few bits and pieces to it, and attach it,

and we're almost there.

Looks good, looks the part.

Yeah, really pleased.

Once Mark has got the electronics back in,

and it's all working,

get everything cleaned up again.

it's going to look brilliant, absolutely great.

It takes a team effort to get a radio like Albert's back

to how it would have been when he bought it with wife Eileen.

And things don't always go to plan.

But we rarely find something we can't fix.

Right, Mark?

It's been quite a...a game, this particular one,

and I can not locate where it's broken from,

it's so fine, the wire.

And the only way I'm now to resolve the problem is to actually replace

the whole unit.

And if I do it right, we will then have some magic,

and may even hear some music in the air.

Now we're used to being able to carry music everywhere,

but it wasn't until the 1950s that a truly pocket-sized music

So small that a dozen can be put in a thimble.

Once again, we owe our thanks to science.

Transistor radios like Albert's could be made smaller and lighter

than valve radios, going on sale in 1954.

Radios were suddenly in cars...

..on the street...

..in the parks...

..and, like Albert and Eileen, down on the beach.

33 years since it's worked properly,

the radio has had its faulty components replaced,

so it can bring back some of those precious memories.

This, actually, looks very encouraging.

We've now got a, what we call sinusoidal waveform.

That is one which is repetitive, goes up and down,

and that is working well.

So that now tells me we've got a good chance of getting

this old lady back into operation again.

Mark, how we doing, sir? Hi.

Yeah. I'm getting ready. What we got?

Well, we've got the radio casing cleaned.

That looks a lot better, doesn't it?

It does, doesn't it? Yes. Suzie has done the handle.

Oh, superb. That looks really good.

Steve has worked his magic. Look what he's made there.

He's made a dial. I think that's for tuning, isn't it?

That's right. You use that for the tuning.

And it didn't have one originally, so he's made that up.

And the knurling he's done on the edges is absolutely superb.

He's clever, isn't he? Very.

So all you got to do is put this in there. Put that back in there.

Put it all back together, reassemble it, and then turn it on,

and the magic will happen.

Owner Albert was just 22 when he and his then girlfriend

Eileen bought the radio, which provided the soundtrack

to their love story for over 50 years.

I think me dad's been quite lost without the radio.

Even though it didn't work before, it was still in the house,

so it was still there.

I'm hoping that when he gets it back he can listen to it,

and it'll bring back memories for him and me mum,

when me mum was there, and so, yeah, I can't wait.

We meet again. How we doing?

Hello, Jay. Hi.

Hello, mate. Come here. How you doing?

Oh, all the better for seeing you, matey.

Oh, bless you.

Really am. Take a seat.

Nice to see you. And you.

Hello. Pleasure to meet you again.

So, tell me, what was the radio like when you brought it in?

I couldn't get it to go.

It was just stood there, and hopefully...

Hopefully? So what are you hoping, then?

What are you hoping?

I'm hoping... Yeah. ..it is in working order.

I want it to play.

You ready for it?

ALBERT GASPS

Oh, look at that.

Oh, my God! You got your dial.

Oh, and the volume.

Oh, that is brilliant.

One little thing - we left the toothbrush handles on it,

cos I thought that was quite cute.

Oh, thank you. I hope you don't mind.

No, no, no. It's brilliant.

Look at the handle.

It's like it was when I bought it.

Well, the next test is to show you if it's working or not.

So... I'm not touching it!

You're not touching it? All right. Well, I'm going to touch it.

For this very special moment,

I've enlisted the help of a local radio station.

I'm Anna Bingham.

I've got something a bit different for you now here, on Spirit FM.

We had a request for Albert, and hopefully,

this next tune will bring back a few memories.

And this is dedicated to Albert and Eileen.

# That beauty's often hidden...

Oh, Eileen.

I can see us dancing at the old baths.

We used to smooch to this at last dance at the baths.

This was the last dance, yeah? Yeah.

That's fantastic. Good on you.

I can't believe it.

It's a pleasure.

Glad we could do it for you.

There we go.

That is brilliant. Is that good? Thank you, guys.

Pleasure. I don't know what to say!

Don't have to say anything.

You've said everything, by the way you are.

This is absolutely superb.

I never thought this'd be going again.

Never.

Come here, sir.

It's been a pleasure. Nice to see you. Thank you.

Well, let's get this wrapped up for you. Thank you.

Get it all sorted.

It's been an absolutely fantastic ordeal.

I never expected that.

Never.

I didn't think he'd be able to do it.

And it's all nice and clean, isn't it?

I think, just looking at it, we was like, "Wow!"

But then to actually hear it playing was even better.

He wants a damn knighthood, he does.

I'm still shaking now.

I am absolutely over the moon with it.

It's a magical feeling

to see people's memories brought back to life...

Oh, my word!

..and to learn the remarkable stories

behind their treasured possessions.

You are wonderful!

And it never fails to touch my heart,

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