BBC Repair Shop star close to tears after heartbreaking | UK News

A visitor on The Repair Shop was left emotional after listening to a treasured household heirloom for the first time in her life. Fenella Haffenden, who was born deaf, appeared on the BBC One show on Wednesday (April 8) as specialists restored a delicate mechanical chook in a golden cage — a piece tied to childhood recollections she had never totally skilled. Fenella, 62, explained that as a baby she would go to her grandmother in Jersey, where the chook was wound up before dinner for the youngsters to get pleasure from.

But while others listened to it sing, Fenella might only watch. She told the crew she would faux to hear it, becoming a member of in with the second despite not understanding what it appeared like. The chook later went lacking and was only lately found in a relative’s loft — badly broken and no longer working. Experts stepped in to restore the intricate piece, bringing its mechanism — and its faint “twirp” sound — back to life.

Ahead of the reveal, Fenella admitted: “It’s bittersweet because i want to hear the bird twirping the way it used to”. When the restored chook finally chirped, she was immediatley moved.

Fighting back tears, she told the specialists: “You have no idea how much this means to me. You have given me a missing piece of my soul.

I just cannot believe how beautifully restored this bird is. It’s fulfilled that missing jigsaw piece in my life. It’s wonderful. Thank you so much”.

Fenella’s look also shone a mild on her extraordinary life story. She discovered to communicate with the help of a speech therapist as a baby, after her mom realised she was deaf when she was 18 months previous.

Around 20 years in the past, she acquired a cochlear implant, permitting her to hear more clearly for the first time — making the second even more highly effective.

Her life has also been marked by tragedy, after her husband was killed by a freak lightning strike, leaving her to raise their three younger kids alone.

In an interview with Okehampton Times, she said: “As a young child our family used to visit my grandmother in Jersey who used to wind up a singing bird in a cage prior to dinner every day for all us children to see.

“Sadly being deaf I could not hear it but I was amazed at the beauty of the movement of the bird in its golden cage.

“I was so used to pretend to join in the experiences everyone, that I just behaved as if I could hear it sing. But I longed to hear what everyone else was hearing.”