An item that played a part in political history arrives at the Repair Shop, joined by an unorthodox container for a collection of wartime love letters and an iconic gadget from the 1980s.

Arriving for an appointment with expert Brenton West are brother and sister Kay Vann and Peter Jeff, who have brought with them a hat box. But while the box itself is in need of repair, it’s the contents that make it truly special for the siblings and their large extended family. The hat box belonged to their dad, Albert, who enlisted in the Navy in 1941 shortly after meeting their mother Joan. Throughout the war, Albert and Joan exchanged hundreds of love letters, all of which came to be stored in the hat box. It has become somewhat battered, and Albert’s name is now missing from the engraved plate on the top, so the siblings are entrusting the hat box and letters to Brenton to restore them to a condition befitting such a wonderful memento of their parents' early courtship.

A repair with political significance arrives at the workbench of upholstery expert Sonnaz Nooranvary. Michael, originally from Galway in Ireland, would like her to restore a curved wooden chair that once hosted the derrière of a 20th-century political titan. In 1963, the chair, owned by Michael’s parent’s Mary and Kevin, was used during a visit to Galway by President John F Kennedy. Of Irish descent, JFK was on a rare trip to receive the Freedom of Galway, which required some sitting and some signing. But organisers had forgotten to provide seating arrangements, so Michael’s parents saved the day with a loan of the now-treasured chair. But Sonnaz has her work cut out to revive the dry, cracked leather and moth-eaten cushion if she is to restore this tiny bit of political history back to its former glory.

The final restoration falls to electronics maestro Mark Stuckey, whose challenge is to dissect and reassemble an iconic 1980s accessory brought in by Rich from Essex. Presenting a humble Walkman, Rich explains that the item belonged to his older sister Tracy, who handed it down with some cassettes in the mid-80s. When Tracey passed away in 2017, Rich attempted a repair on the broken Walkman, but failed to get it working again. He hopes that Mark can pinpoint the circuit board problem and get the mechanism working so that he can once again listen to music on the device that reminds him of his beloved older sister. Show less