The repair shop expert was at a loss for words when a guest burst into tears at the WWII sculpture restoration
AN EXPERT from The Repair Shop was at a loss for words after a guest broke down in tears over a WWII sculpture restoration.
In the latest episode of the BBC series, ceramics expert Kirsten Ramsay met a guest named Martin Jochman, who had brought with him a damaged sculpture of his late mother, Věra Škodová.
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He told how at the age of 27 Věra became friends with a ceramics student named Miloš Axman in Czechoslovakia and he made the plaster study of her in 1947.
Martin said: “She had a very colorful and interesting life, but also quite tragic.”
He went on to tell how his mother was sent to work in a munitions factory in Berlin at the beginning of World War II.
He said: “She was planning to flee to Switzerland with two male friends but they were caught crossing the border and both of her friends were shot dead.”
“She was sentenced to life imprisonment and released in 1945, and she walked all the way to Prague. I’m sure it hit her hard, but she was very brave.”
Kirsten then set to work on the sculpture, restoring it to its former glory. The finished result moved him to tears.
He exclaimed, “Oh my god, it’s fantastic. I last saw my mum in 1999 before she died and it’s a wonderful memory, she was 27 and she was so beautiful.”
Kirsten was a bit speechless when he told her, “It brings back so many memories, it takes me back to my childhood.”
“That’s exactly how I remember it, including the base that was exactly like that and the way you put the missing part together… The result is exactly as it should be.”
She then told him that it had been “an absolute pleasure” to restore the piece.
