I work in The Repair Shop and this is how we could eventually rescue our own family heirlooms

The apparently humble books that we write or annotate ourselves – diaries, notebooks, sketchbooks, photograph albums, a collection of recipes – can contain incredible stories within their pages. These precious but overlooked items are in danger of being lost. That’s because, despite the fact that human beings have made and repaired books since the invention of writing, bookbinding – the art of protecting the text of a book – is sadly dying out.

The Repair Shop’s viewers will know that ordinary books can tell us so much about our social history, the fabric of our nation or the world. They are as important as the highbrow history tomes on the shelf.

Of all the items I’ve restored in my career, I will never forget the Haggadah, a book containing the names of survivors from Theresienstadt concentration camp, brought into the Repair Shop barn last year. It’s an account of survival, an important record of the era and a treasured family possession. I’ve remained in touch with its owner, the grandson of two survivors. He’s gone on to trace every single person on that list.

In the latest series of The Repair Shop, I worked on a pocket-sized diary that belonged to a woman living in Guernsey under Nazi occupation. It’s a powerful and illuminating wartime story that would be hanging by a thread if her grandson hadn’t brought it into us.

Many books illuminate big stories from the perspective of everyday people. The code-breaking cookbook, handed to me last year, shone a light on secret wartime activities. The woman who brought it to us baked the book’s lemon pudding and ginger parkin recipes with her grandmother as a child. She discovered secret codes within its pages after her grandmother, who deciphered German military messages at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, passed away.

One of my aims when I joined The Repair Shop in 2019 was to put bookbinding in the limelight. I’m proud when teachers say that the programme has inspired a new generation of students. But the courses today are small, expensive and private.

We also have to contend with the fact that books are now made with a built-in obsolescence, ready to pulp. Books should be better produced: don’t print too close to the margin on the left-hand side because you can’t open them properly and if you force them, they split. If a book becomes tatty or unloved it’s more likely to be discarded, with the loss of sometimes invaluable or personal family history.

My job is a delight and there are occupational perks – I can get distracted reading and lost in the illustrations. Mistakes can happen (I wrote “navel” on the cover of a seven-volume set of naval history books) but you quickly learn how to fix them.

All crafts nourish your soul. School pupils should be encouraged to cover and decorate exercise books. Bookbinding is a mindful activity, particularly in our digital age, and it’s why I work even on Christmas Day. But more than that, it could have a ripple effect. Start early and that enthusiasm might continue. Bookbinding is easy, it just takes practice. We could eventually rescue our own family heirlooms.

It’s not just grand artefacts but the dusty everyday items tucked away in lofts or in drawers that hold immense value, a tangible link between past and present. But this legacy is being squandered. We must value and preserve this priceless inheritance before it’s too late.

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