Sidmouth Repair Café holds its first session of 2022 on Saturday, January 29, offering the chance to get broken items fixed and enjoy a friendly chat over a hot drink.

Household items, kitchen gadgets, electronics, clothes, toys and furniture can all be brought in for mending by the team of expert fixers.

The last session took place on Saturday, November 27, when organiser Jenny Ashmore said the refreshments had been particularly well appreciated: “Bacon rolls, cake and hot cups of tea and coffee were never more welcome on a cold and windy day!”

As usual, a wide variety of items put the fixers’ skills to the test.

Jenny said: “A fave this time was one of two dolls that came in - it was incredibly life-like and the owner is now looking to give it to an Alzheimer’s organisation after its repair.”

Other items given a new lease of life included leaf blowers (‘hardly needed on Saturday!’) a laptop, a soup maker, an antique wooden tea caddy, earrings and piano stools.

Clothes and accessories were also repaired, with torn trousers patched up, bags re-lined and zips on boots fixed.

Jenny said: “And always popular was David, doing ‘his usual great job of sharpening knives, secateurs, chisels and the like.”

She added that not everything can be restored to working order, and in those cases the fixers can point the owner in the right direction: “Just as important is the advice given where an item couldn’t be fixed there and then, or at all. Also where repairers go that extra mile to help (and they always do!).

“Most visitors are not disappointed though, as one said: ‘Very warm and friendly and although unable to repair – I was shown where and how to get the part to fix it.”

Others appreciate the chance to find out how to mend things themselves. One visitor said: “Learnt something new about plugs and will hopefully get the lamps working again.”

The Sidmouth Repair Café takes place on the last Saturday of each month between 10am and 1pm at the Manstone Youth Centre.