King’s visit to The Repair Shop wins daytime Bafta TV award

The daytime Bafta TV award has gone to The Repair Shop for an episode featuring the King.

In the one-off special, the repair team including Jay Blades visited Charles at Dumfries House in Scotland for The Repair Shop: A Royal Visit.

Arriving on the stage to accept the gong, Blades, who now lives in Ironbridge and has a workshop in Wolverhampton, said: “Wow, just give me two seconds, I have to take a picture, it’s quite special.

“We started as a daytime show on BBC Two, I’m so glad we’ve got an (award).”

Blades added that it was the “first time” that a “6ft black guy, from Hackney, (with a) gold tooth, (from a) single parent (family)” was presented with an award for daytime TV.

During the show’s episode, Charles saw a bracket clock and a piece made for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee by British ceramics maker Wemyss Ware fixed and also joked and laughed with Blades.

It also featured Blades touching Charles’s arm and him returning the gesture by placing a hand on his back.

Speaking to the PA news agency from the red carpet of the Bafta TV awards, Blades said attending the coronation was “magical”.

He said: “It was absolutely magical. It was one of those things when you could walk around London and see no traffic, no tourists and it’s just all about the coronation, just a celebration of the King.

“It was special.”

Blades added that The Repair Shop has a “simple message, but a big message”.

He said: “It’s all about community – there’s a community of us at The Repair Shop and then we’re helping people that we don’t know, so what you’re doing there is you’re actually showing humanity. That’s what the show’s all about.”