YORK LIFE
TIME TO CHANGE Steve Popple of Antique Restoration, York, starred as one of the experts on Channel Four’s programme, Mend It for Money recently. Filmed in Glasgow, the show takes a dive into the world of collectables, antiques and restoration. Guests bring their artefacts to Britain’s best makers and menders in the hopes of restoring them and making a profit. In the series, Steve repairs a commode, a haberdashery unit and his personal favourite, a gentleman’s compactum: “The gentleman’s compactum is a fantastic piece from a bygone era. From the 1920s: it’s for a proper English gentleman. It’s a wardrobe that has special compartments for everything you even have a special place for your opera hat. These things just don’t exist anymore,” said Steve. For each of the restoration projects, two of the country’s top craftspeople will compete to get the job: pitching their plans and estimating how much profit the item will make when sold and agreeing to a share with the owner. The show narrator, Tom Allen, summarised it neatly: “It’s basically restorers competing to do up furniture and sell it for the most profit.
It’s like Antiques Roadshow with the added fun of capitalism.” Since the show, Steve has been recognised by his existing customers and has got some new customers, too. Up-cycling has become incredibly popular of late, but Steve and his colleagues at Antique Restoration have been doing this for a long time: “This new idea of up-cycling, we’ve been doing it for 30 years. That’s what we do. When people have furniture that’s a bit tatty and might end up in a skip, well if we can breathe some more life into it without felling any more trees, it’s got to be a good thing for the planet.” And what’s more, it’s not as expensive as people might think: “I think it’s important that people get to see that we’re not actually colossally expensive. There is the assumption of ‘oh it’s antiques, it’s going to be expensive,’ it’s not - I don’t drive a Ferrari!” If you have a piece of furniture you’d like restoring, you can call Antique Restoration on 01904 400728 or
Steve Popple on Channel Four’s Mend It for Money visit www.antique-restoration-york. co.uk for more information. And if you'd like to see Steve on telly, you can catch up on Mend It for Money on All 4, the on-demand streaming platform by Channel Four.
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Join the mental health revolution with York CVS and its campaign: Time to Change York which is hosted by York CVS and funded by City of York Council. Time to Change York is a group of residents, employers and employees coming together to help end mental health stigma and discrimination in York through a series of projects that use creativity to change attitudes and beliefs towards people with experience of mental illness. This could be through poetry, video, radio interviews and projects focussing on stigmatising language. There’s also an employers’ group that is focussing on ending stigma and discrimination in the workplace. York CVS is looking for anyone (from CEOs to retirees) with or without experience of mental ill-health to get involved and help create mentally healthy workplaces.
Want to get involved? Follow @TTCYork on Twitter or contact project coordinator, Emma on timetochange@yorkcvs.org.uk.
