This week I have chosen “The Repair Shop” by Simon Armitage and I dedicate it to the members of Haywoods Repair Café who encourage and inspire each other to achieve remarkable repairs.
They work saddle soap
Simon Armitage (1963—)
into the perished leather till it revives.
Quicksilver rolls
from the soldering iron’s feverish nib:
Poem 464. The Repair Shop
They work saddle soap
into the perished leather till it revives.
Quicksilver rolls
from the soldering iron’s feverish nib:
I will not blub.
The hasp and the firing-pin and the brace
will have to be re-forged
from a toy dinosaur cast in poisonous lead.
The insides are numbered
and laid out on a bench; long-billed pincers
and curved needles
pick at the frayed threads – I’m thinking sandpiper,
godwit, little stint.
The camera prefers my emotional side.
Glass is so unforgiving
the restorer says – signs of crizzling
and spalling here and here,
but the fingerprints are a nice touch
so should stay.
For stuffing they’re using pure British Fleece
and the sleepy fluff
of the night-flowering Kapok tree.
The limbs stiffen,
the sunken smile re-inflates.
These worn frets
will have to be filed, like a horse’s teeth.
Cracked alabaster
heals with see-through cement till you can’t
see the join.
An old glue pot stews on the window ledge.
I wait outside
under the thatched roof in the fake rain
while the goldsmith
practises alchemy under a powerful lens;
an acetylene torch
is a magic wand in the wheelwright’s hand.
Flustered bellows huff
and puff, not getting enough breath.
“It belonged to your dad, right?”
the presenter says as they whip off the sheet.
“It is my dad,” I say.
When they turn the key the ratchets grind into life;
he totters forward
on wind-up legs, raises his clockwork arms
and empties
a bucket of cold ashes into my broken face.
Simon Armitage describes the work of the experts in the TV show The Repair Shop so clearly and cleverly in this poem. He touches on most of the kinds of repairs seen in the programme, bringing each one to our attention in just a few words, but he also conveys its spirit and a few of the producers’ tricks like the shots of the owners interviewed outside as the ‘rain’ falls behind them.
There is always the expectation that the item repaired is so precious to its owner that tears are not far away, especially in a successful outcome, and Armitage expresses his determination not to give in to his emotions “I will not blub”.
There is also the moment of the denouement when “they whip off the sheet” to display the repaired item, clean and polished. This is subverted by Armitage’s assertion that, far from being a precious keepsake handed down from his father, the item actually is his father.
The poem was written about eighteen months after Armitage’s father died and it seems to me to reflect Armitage’s grief. The apparently quick and easy fixes promised by the show are illusory in the context of bereavement: there is no repairing heartbreak no matter how skilled the expert. Armitage celebrates these skilled repairers but asserts that they are powerless in the face of death: the cosy illusion of the conclusion of each repair is sharply contrasted with the stark image of a clockwork automaton hurling cremated remains in our face.
I like the way Armitage describes the work of the repairers, cutting from one activity to another and reflecting the camerawork of the show. I like the way he evokes the startled awe we feel at a particularly successful resolution of a tricky problem: “Cracked alabaster/heals with see-through cement till you can’t/see the join” and the joyful moment when a well-loved and comforting soft toy revives: “The limbs stiffen,/the sunken smile re-inflates.” As an electronics repairer, I’m particularly pleased with “Quicksilver rolls/from the soldering iron’s feverish nib” which is a nice description of how solder flows around a joint as the iron melts it.
I chose this poem to celebrate the repairers and supporters of the Repair Café where I volunteer—Haywoods Repair Café. Since I started in June I have discovered many new friends who are endlessly inventive in their solutions to problems and tremendously supportive of each other in every way. And if you have an item whether it is electrical, mechanical, textile or ceramic in need of some attention, bring it along to our next café in January 2027 and we will try our best to bring back to its best.
I have been unable to find a performance of the poem online.