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Just magic Secretly we all want to believe in magic, luckily racehorses give us that opportunity
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AGIC, WE ALL LIKE TO BELIEVE IN IT DON’T WE? The BBC show The Repair Shop revealed that even as adults we want to be believers. The programme films people taking along old family items and heirlooms, which have fallen into disrepair, to a crew of repairing experts based in a workshop in a converted barn. The items can range from pictures to electric goods to music boxes and furniture, but all have some strong family connection to the owner and are items they have been unable to fix themselves or by local tradesmen. They are usually worthless items, but which have limitless sentimental value. I enjoy my history and there are often fascinating stories behind the items, too – fur-less teddy bears carried in the arms of a child as he or she fled from Eastern Europe to Britain in the face of the WW2 Nazi onslaught, old radios that provided the only form of family entertainment before the arrival of televisions, portraits that have become grimy and grubby and grey but which hold precious memories of former lives. It then becomes amazing to me, someone far from blessed with either the patience or the careful and diligent hands of an artisian, the intricate work, sometimes at a miniscule level, that the repairers can do to complete the task. It is actually quite magical, seeing these items restored to
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“The magnetism of horseracing was evident at Leopardstown on Dublin Racing Festival weekend when Honeysuckle returned to her adoring crowd and fans after collecting her third Irish Champion Hurdle success
former glories; the repairs bringing back the items to an as-new like condition that ancestors must have enjoyed maybe over 1oo years ago. In a January episode, a middle-aged lady called Minty Barlow brought along a replica mini house. It had been part of a model village tourist attraction in 1970s Cleethorpes and when the local council brought the outdoor display to an end, her father bought two of the houses for their own family garden in Grimsby. She said on the show: “So my dad was a real character. He’s a real eccentric. But he had this sense of magic. He convinced me that fairies lived here. “My memory is that [the house] had little chimney pots on, because he made them smoke. I just believed that, 100 per cent, this was the fairy house in the garden, and the fairies were home if the chimney smoked. “It was just magic. There was never a dull moment growing up in Grimsby with [my parents].” Barlow’s late parents sounded like a really fun couple (she was brought up in the late 60s and early 70s so maybe there were other influences involved), and they created a dream their daughter could delight in. Since Barlow lost her parents, sadly the house had become neglected, as Barlow said: “I don’t think fairies would move in how it is right now, I think they’d be quite disgusted!” She wanted the house renovated so she could reconnect
