(From British children’s TV show Bagpuss: The Mending Song)
They call me Mr. Glue.
For around 18 months, I have been fixing things along with the other menders in the Repair Café Nunhead, set up by Sophie about two years ago.
I’ve mended a miniature piano music box, chairs, shoes, some jewellery, spectacles and most unusually a Caribbean coconut fibre ring, which was a fascinating job, obviously precious to the woman who brought it: I suspect it was a memento of a love affair, but that’s not the sort of question you can ask of someone you only just met! Some of the items we fix have sentimental value, in addition to the environmental benefit of keeping them out of landfill.
When I joined the Repair Café as a volunteer I decided that my skills with gluing would be an addition to the range of repairs the group could do. Shoes and wooden items often need glue fixes. Modern glues can do an immense variety of tasks. I tend to use Gorilla Glue or epoxy (“Araldite” type) adhesives as these give stronger bonds than hot glue or superglue. Some of the most satisfying repairs are ones which have sentimental value, like the ring I mentioned above, or a display plate that was painted when a woman’s – now-adult – child was at school: it had fallen off the wall and was broken in three places. I couldn’t mend it invisibly, so the cracks showed, but the owner thought that was great because it showed how much it meant to her as it had suffered a disaster and been fixed.
The Repair Café operates once a month out of a community centre in South East London. There are the sewing team and the electricals group, as well as a spread of other skills, like bicycle repair, woodworking and leather expertise. As a result of success, the group expanded so we had to move into a bigger room.
Most of the menders generally try to explain what they are doing, so people can learn to repair items themselves. Often they are astonished at how easy it is to do, for example, rewiring an electrical plug. That’s not everyone, of course, but we seem to have quite a generation who have been brought up to believe technological items either work, or should be binned immediately. That is an attitude that needs to change, I think.
It’s a lot of fun, although it can be a little stressful when a repair is difficult, but it is very satisfying when you learn and apply new skills. There is a lovely cameraderie between the menders and we usually retire to the pub next door afterwards.
It would be remiss of me not to mention David, Richard and Aya, who organise things, which is quite complex: although there is a queue, it makes sense to move a job forward if a mender is free, or prioritise something simple, to get it done quickly over a more time-consuming repair, so this aspect of the Café involves constant project management juggling. Obviously we menders also collaborate on jobs that need multiple skillsets. A broken lamp might not be electrical, but have a busted switch inside, that needs physically repairing.
Are there any downsides to volunteering? I don’t think so, although I have felt a bit dismayed on a couple of occasions when I couldn’t fix children’s toys. Adults are usually understanding if you cannot repair something (or we think it is unsafe, which can be the case with elderly electricals, it’s better to junk them than risk a fire).
On a more philosophical level, we must reduce our carbon emissions by repairing items. I think the ‘throwaway society’ is on its way out, and we will – of necessity – need to make products more repairable and durable in future. We will also need to inculcate repair skills in young people to ensure that artefacts can be repaired, because if these skills are lost it is hard to regain them.
Julian Jackson, aka Mr Glue, volunteers with Repair Café Nunhead in South East London.
You can see the original, charming, quirky 1970s Bagpuss TV show on YouTube.