Original subtitles

Hello.

These days I spend more and more time in my Wiltshire home.

And the pub I own.

Thinking about all the big problems in the world.

And some smaller ones that annoy me.

Luckily there's a place I can go to solve them all. Or at least try.

My shed.

Right.

It's here that I have the tools. Let's just throw some wood up. The tea.

And a couple of other highly competent blokes.

Very good.

Brace yourself.

Who've agreed to help me rid the world of problems.

Is she getting a ticket out?

Great. And small.

The cereal has gone soggy. I'll also have to take on other people's problems.

What is wrong with Peter?

He used to make a sound and now he doesn't.

By which I mean the locals at my pub who are always bringing me stuff to mend.

Is it a train set?

So join us and our excitable crew... ..who will capture our endeavour...

That was epic!

..as we create... ..make... That feels like a terrible thing we've just done.

..repair... So it's never worked.

Not in my lifetime.

..and repurpose...

In my shedload of ideas. What do you think? This is just brilliant.

Ah, Wiltshire. A peaceful haven in the west country of England.

Do not be deceived. This is a nerve centre with horses, where I plan to

the nation's biggest issues.

First on my list, something guaranteed to inflame the indignant passions of

Englishmen and women nationwide.

Well, that'll earn you.

The yellow square of shame.

Oh, it's the worst feeling in the world.

This, viewers, is a parking ticket.

Last year alone, 14 .5 million of these were slapped on windscreens up and down

the country.

That's... Two every second.

But some parking tickets are more frustrating than others, as our sound

Dan, has just experienced.

Awful. There's a sense that the system has beaten you. The man has got you.

However, just out of interest, Dan, how long had you paid to park?

I paid to park for an hour. And when was that issued?

five minutes after the time yeah and there you go you see what a lot of

don't realize is that there is a 10 minute grace period if you pay for

of half an hour or more there is 10 minutes beyond that in which a traffic

warden may not issue a ticket at least not legally and a lot of people don't

realize this and more importantly a lot of traffic wardens don't realise this.

So, what we're going to do is devise a system that warns traffic wardens of

piece of legislation and make sure they don't issue a parking ticket when they

are not permitted to.

The law is an ass.

Of the 93 ,000 people who challenged a parking ticket in 2023, nearly half were

successful and had their fine overturned.

But if thousands of tickets are incorrectly issued each year by traffic

something must be done.

And it's going to take three men to find a solution in a shed.

Bringing the brains.

That means the winner is Sim.

My engineering pal of 20 years, Simmy.

We're going to make it better, though.

Simmy can juggle anything I throw at him.

Almost.

And my other mate is a handyman who calls himself Tony the Tool.

That's the job for you, Tony.

He's good with wood. It's many miles off, so you can chisel in.

And game for just about anything.

Tell my children I love them.

As for me, I provide the shed and the fantastic hair.

Gentlemen and crew, assemble.

We're all ready, as usual.

Right, viewers, the fight back against traffic wardens who don't understand the

very legislation they are there to enforce. Nothing else starts here. And

going to involve a bit of woodwork, and it's going to involve some electronics

and a timer and a sensor and one of these, a megaphone.

That's quite loud. That was quite loud.

We have in mind a rooftop traffic warden warning system for my car, where a sign

pops up... That's a Series 1 Panda you've drawn. Mine's a Series 3.

And the legislation is read aloud if the sensor detects a ticket issued within

the ten -minute grace period.

Right, the exact wording is quite tedious, but...

Given that it's a law, it probably needs to be displayed in full. So I think we

might as well make it almost as big as the roof of the car.

And then it would go... And then this would go... I say, traffic warden,

full details of the law are displayed in front of you on the sign that just

popped up.

Now, until ten minutes are up.

Something like that. Yeah.

Right, I will read it to you, but you can see just how verbose it is. The

Secretary of State, in exercise of the powers conferred by Sections 72, 73, 3

and 89, which was called A but is now called 1, no penalty charge is payable

the contravention where the vehicle has been left beyond the permitted parking

period for a period not exceeding 10 minutes. There it is. That's the law,

it's signed by Eric Pickles.

I met Eric Pickles once. He was tremendous.

Born 20th April 1952. Parents, Constance Joyce Pickles and Jack Brownstone

Pickles. Brownstone Pickles?

No, that's a joke. No, I made that up, Lottie.

Right,

shall we do some woodwork? Let's go to the chop saw.

While Sim engineers a sensor to detect a parking ticket and a timer to set the

grace period...

Tony and I tackle the frame.

Hands clear.

Contact.

For our plan to work, we need a sign that pops up only when a ticket is

within that magic ten minutes.

Let's get it to length first.

And is big enough to display the letter of the law to the letter.

Are you thinking of just screwing that together?

For time, yes.

That's pretty good, actually.

So that's the basic frame built.

Next, we need to give our legalese some lift.

So you're going to hinge it here when it's released.

So it pivots from there.

How do we wind it?

I don't know.

While super -brain Simi scratches his head...

I take the opportunity to enjoy a nice relaxing cup of tea under my favourite

tree.

When I eventually return to the shed, Simmy has made what looks like a sort of

cat's cradle for blokes.

Now I need to tie those, and that's got to go through there.

And then you tie that.

However, they all need to be the same length.

Simi has decided to use something designed for torsion weapons before

were invented, also known as... Tourniquet.

Oh, it's a tourniquet. A tourniquet. But it has to be a precise length, which

requires tying a precise knot in a precise place.

Were you in the Scouts, anyone?

I wasn't. I wasn't.

Were you in the Scouts? No.

You'll have heard of the tourniquet you might tie if, for example, you've cut

off your own leg and are bleeding to death.

You pull that all the way through there.

This tourniquet is how medieval boy scouts used to fire projectiles. Huge

of string.

Before giant springs were invented, trebuchets and crossbows used tightly

twisted rope, which stores up energy.

When released, it's powerful enough to launch whatever you want at whoever you

don't like.

So we've both got a free end.

So we could tie that through there and then tie it in the middle. So the

being in a continuous loop, when twisted, string becomes spring.

We hope that the power stored in this tourniquet, once we wind it up, will be

enough to lift our giant fine.

That's a terrible knot for me. No, no, it's just a knot -up.

So they say in the Navy, if you can't tie a knot, tie a lot.

Simi, do you think this will work?

Possibly. Possibly. But if it doesn't work, we're back to square one.

It's definitely working.

It's medieval science. It is, but there's a lot of tension going on around

And it could just all implode. But I think we should wind it up.

and we will see.

Okay, well, why don't you two wind it up.

Simi and Tony, using their immense strength, have wound this about as

they can.

Just a few final tweaks with our 14th century angle grinder.

And Simi's antediluvian hammer.

Okay, stand back, everybody, because I'm going to release the vertical component

of the sign lifter. Are you ready?

No. Everybody ready on cameras?

In three, two, one.

Welcome back to Wiltshire and the war against

erroneous parking tickets.

We have built a rooftop frame for my car, onto which we'll fix a giant

of the legislation.

Now we're about to test the tourniquet that lifts it up.

Once the camera crew have sorted themselves out... OK,

so we need to build up this.

And action.

Simi, do you think this will work?

Possibly. By releasing the tightly wound ropes, we hope the stored energy will

be enough to raise the sign.

Everybody ready on cameras?

In three, two, one...

Huzzah! They say in medieval time.

Are you happy? Yes. I like the elegance of it. And it's historical as well. It

has historical context.

So, with some wood and some string, the materials that were used by our

forebears, by our great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfathers,

plus an impact driver and an ankle grinder.

We are ready to end that dark period in history that has come to be known as the

erroneous parking ticket issued during the ten -minute grace period in

accordance with subsection B of the Road Traffic Act Amendment of 2015.

Excellent work, men.

Very good. Let's finish it off.

While Tony finishes the frame and installs the sign,

I'm off for a moment of quiet reflection.

I'm very fortunate to call Wiltshire my home.

I'm even more fortunate to have my own pub.

Morning!

But it's not all IPA and me time.

Sometimes, such as today, I come to the pub to have a quiet... pint and

contemplate my good luck in life and somebody will come up to me with some

knackered priceless sentimental family heirloom and say oh james could you just

mend this yes the downside of the locals knowing you have a pub and a penchant

for tinkering is they also know where to ambush you

And sure enough, no sooner had Sim joined me in the garden than local Roger

turns up with his grandfather's clockwork boat.

First saw it when I was about six, seven years old. My grandfather said, I've

got this for you.

When I get it working, you shall have it.

17 years later, when he died and I was clearing out his cupboard, I found that

in the back of the drawer.

So it's never worked? Not in my lifetime.

Have you had it in water?

I've put it in the water and pushed it, but never. Oh, OK.

Oh, we need to get that open and have a look. Well, as it happens, my toolkit is

always to hand.

What about my long carburettor screwdriver, which gives you good

at that. That is a nice screwdriver. That is a nice screwdriver.

So have you ever taken it apart?

No, no.

My grandfather was something of a perfectionist.

And I felt if I messed it up, it would be on my head and I shall regret it. I

can see that it's clockwork because I can see the square shaft that the key

on, but you don't have the key and you've never had the key. Never had a

with it, no. So this has never worked in your lifetime, Roger.

Do you mind if I ask how old you are now?

78. So this is coming off for the first time in at least 72 years.

Ooh. Oh, look at that.

Can you see this film crew? That is a...

So the Germans were exceptionally good at, this is a wooden boat, but they were

good at tin toys, clockwork and so on in the 1920s and 30s. In fact, they were

probably the world leaders at that sort of thing. So I'm expecting something

quite exquisite.

Yeah, the spring looks to be intact.

I think you've probably bashed that prop a few times, haven't you, Roger? I

should think so, yeah.

So I think all we really need to do with that, Sim, is take the motor out.

possibly strip it, clean it, lube it, straighten the proper bit, do a little

of reshaping on this, but without altering the patina, put it back

And there's your boat, sir. What are you going to do with it?

Find a pond and take my grandchildren along as a memento of their great -great

-grandfather. Great, yes.

Great -great -grandfather.

Reluctantly, Simi and I leave our pints and head back to the shed.

to see if we can bring Roger's grandfather's boat back to life.

So, viewers, we're going to make a key, but we do know that it works because we

wound it with a pair of slip pliers.

Other problems are the rudder is not properly attached, the propeller is

misshapen, but most importantly, we need to take the motor out and give it a

jolly good clean, and that's why... Ha -ha!

Our new favourite thing.

First, we need to remove that exquisite clockwork motor. Oh, that is turning.

For the first time since it went in there.

Yeah.

Right.

Don't let me let go of it, otherwise... Keep your fingers out of the way.

What's that?

It's not much wrong with that, to be honest.

This is my ultrasonic cleaner.

It's full of a cleansing fluid, and in essence, it explodes a load of bubbles

the surface of things, and that knocks the dirt off.

It's going in.

Let's see what that does.

While the ultrasonic cleaner cleans ultrasonically, it's a little bit stiff.

We try and straighten the rudder. Not bad.

Right, the ultrasonic cleaner's finished.

Ooh, that's clean.

That's much better.

Ten minutes to dry it off.

Right, whilst that's happening... Ooh, that did something.

That'll do, come to the cry of the perfectionist down the ages.

Time to refit the spotless motor.

There you go.

Right, here they come to you.

No, there's the hole there.

You see that one? Yeah.

There you are. It's in.

The boat is back together and greatly improved.

The brake now works. The rudder is now straight and it is settable.

That's nice.

Which is really nice.

That hasn't been like that for a very long time.

And then it's, well, we've got to make a key.

Yep. But then she's ready for sea trials, which will be a pond or a bar.

To make the key for Roger's grandfather's clockwork boat, we need

Stay where?

Action.

I start by facing off the brass rod, then drilling a hole in the centre to

required depth.

For that, one, two, three, four, seven, eight, seven, nine.

So what I've done there, viewers, is lathe work page one.

I've faced off a piece of brass, drilled a hole through it, parted it off and

faced off the other end. That's just about the simplest thing you can do on a

lathe, isn't it? There is a round hole going through a piece of brass, but Simi

is now going to turn that into a square hole using the skill of the

craftsperson. Whilst you work on that, I'm going to open my special broad

-necked flask, which has a...

Folding spoon.

Very good.

I'm not going to show you what's in here, because it's a secret.

My favourite.

Back in a minute.

Very good.

Whilst I tuck into my secret lunch, Simmy files the round hole so it can fit

square peg.

James? Yeah?

I think I've done your key.

That was quick.

Well, I could have been quicker, but... It was beautiful, man.

Actually, what would be quite nice is to just put a knurled knob on the top.

Ooh. Because then it's very individual. It's very personalised. I can do you a

knurled knob.

To successfully knurl a knob, I need a special knurling tool.

Knurling is a cross -hatched pattern that makes things grippy.

Yeah, that is knurling.

OK, I'm going to go for it.

It's quite nice, isn't it?

Next, I drill a hole in the centre to accept the bit we've already made.

Job well done.

All that's left to do is solder the two pieces together.

There we go, there we go.

You got it.

Is it done?

Yep.

Beautiful.

That...

It is still actually quite warm when you've been holding it for several

Even hot. Yeah, that bit's probably a little hotter.

So I'll say very quickly that I think we've achieved greatness there, and that

looks fabulous, and I hope Roger appreciates it.

Now, if there's one thing I love more than my lathe, it's pubs.

I love them so much, I bought one.

Pubs are a very tough business.

That's why so many are closing.

So those of us with successful surviving pubs have to think constantly about how

to keep costs down without compromising quality.

Today, I'm concerned with the cost of producing chips, a staple of pubs

everywhere, but with the potential to ruin the whole business.

This is Mark, one of the chefs at the Royal Oak Swallow Club, just off the A30

between Shaftesbury and Salisbury.

And he makes chips.

He doesn't only make chips, he makes all sorts of delicious things, but he does

spend quite a lot of his time making the chips. How many potatoes do you think

you turn into chips in a week? We do about five or six bags. There's about

potatoes in a bag. So thousands of potatoes.

Turned into chips every week? By hand.

Wow.

Anyway, the pub would like me to buy them a chip -making machine, which I

costs about 450 quid, isn't it? That'd be great.

Yeah. But what if there's another way?

What if there is a money -saving, engineering -based solution?

Sim and Tony think they may have one.

Leaves frame in a tantalising way.

I wonder what they're cooking up.

And will their idea be as good as mine?

It's a bit of overkill for a potato, isn't it?

The British pub teeters on the verge of extinction, all

because of chips.

It's either hours of cutting them by hand, or a prohibitively expensive chip

-making machine.

We are trying to save time and cut costs whilst chopping chips.

So, Simi and Tony think the answer is a tennis bat. This is a perfectly standard

one. It's not been replaced with cheese wire or anything. It's just normal nylon

strings. And the idea is that you hit the potato and the potato comes out of

other side as chips.

How should we try it?

Underarm serve.

Can we just question... I can sort of work.

What? I don't... You've got a rock -hard potato and quite a top -string tennis

racket. The crew are very cynical about the tennis racket method. I don't see

why it wouldn't work.

I mean, it's no more remarkable than cutting up a big piece of cheese in a

supermarket with a... I know that's a wire and these are nylon, but they're

taut. You need to hit that with some gusto, though.

I'll serve it to you here.

Right. And if you hit it with a four, I'm smart.

Okay.

Hey.

Look.

That's a perfect chip. That's a chip.

And that's a chip.

That one. Look at that. Look at those chips.

They're chips.

To whom should I show these?

Right. Our work here is done.

Can I just say that if I showed you those in the kitchen of my house, you'd

oh, James has made some chips.

No doubt about it whatsoever, those are chips. And everybody on this crew said,

no, a tennis racket won't work. Well, it does.

They've got grass in them, I accept that, but nevertheless... Collection of

chips is a bit of an issue. If I go in and say, I'd like steak and chips,

please, somebody has to go and walk around a field for half an hour picking

chips up.

Is there a way of making this more contained, more repeatable?

Can we attach something on the back of the tennis racket to catch them?

it would slow the tennis racket down because of drag, unless it was a net.

is there a way of fixing the tennis racket and throwing the potatoes at it?

Yeah, we could do that. And then put a bucket behind and you just get a bucket

of chips.

Yeah.

After a brief interlude to gather some more equipment...

We return with our potato chipper version 2 .0.

Which is a mounted tennis bat and a cannon.

All we need now is a method behind here for collecting the chips as they fly

through. So you just go bang, bang, bang, walk back to the pub with a

tub of chips.

Easy. That can simply sit there and catch all the chips.

For maximised ballistic effect, we've cut the potatoes to the same size as the

bore of the cannon.

Clever.

Cue the inevitable lecture in health and safety.

It's a very high -speed cannon and a very heavy potato.

The crew of HMS Victory didn't wear safety goggles.

Nelson would be alive and well today if he had.

Well, he did lose an eye, didn't he?

The power behind our super -sized spud gun is Simi's air compressor, also

for inflating beach toys.

Simi is loading.

Tony is firing. I'm aiming.

Glasses on. Glasses on.

That's four bar. Well tapped, Tony.

Ready? Yep. Fire in the hole.

Those are chips.

Chips, man!

Loads of chips.

That works. That is the beginnings of a big bucket of chips.

All we need now is a few more potatoes.

That's a potato.

And our slow -mo camera.

I think you just killed the GoPro.

If the word gets out that the Royal Oak is producing chips in a novel way, it

will become even more busy and popular than it already is. And I don't think

that's very efficient. But I suddenly remembered. If you two wait there.

What's that?

What the?

My high -power answer to chipping potatoes is a rather lovely burnt orange

-ton, 55 -horsepower diesel wood chipper.

Capable of chipping eight -inch locks.

It's a bit of overkill for a potato, isn't it?

And therefore a King Edward.

What do you think? It has the word chip.

Will it fit in the kitchen?

No.

It will fit in the garden or the car park.

And this will make chips on an industrial scale.

So that goes roughly there.

Ready? Ready.

Feed in the potatoes.

Well.

I'm not quite sure what you'd call that.

That looks like when you make a potato what, sir?

Rosti. Thank you.

That'd make a fantastic rosti, that.

This is field to fork.

That is quite literally off the field there.

I can pretty much guarantee that when we take those into the kitchen and give

them to Mark, he's going to have a small tantrum.

So, will Mark agree that we've come up with a fantastic alternative to the £450

chip -making machine?

They look like you've kicked them around the car park.

Well, we sort of did, in a way, all around the field. These are my chips.

Those are pure tennis racket chips. These are Simi's chips, which are tennis

racket and air cannon. And these are Tony's chips and potato mush.

Keep the grass, everything.

As is, au naturel. I don't know what to say. I think my daughter did something

like this when she was about two.

While Mark prepares our new low -cost, no -chop chips, we reward our

efforts with a nice, refreshing pint of lemonade.

I used to play this with my brother when I was, I don't know, eight or nine, and

he was six or seven. This is just plain lemonade, and the game is who can put

their tongue in it for the longest.

Sure.

Is this what you used to play?

Yeah, maybe you're more sensitive as a child, but after about 15 or 20 seconds

it starts to hurt, believe it or not.

Right, you ready? Yeah. In three, two, one, go.

You might be forgiven for thinking this is just three grown men with their

tongues stuck in pints of lemonade.

We're actually testing our endurance to carbonic acid, which is what gives the

lemonade its fill.

Wow. I like it.

It hurts, doesn't it?

Oh, we have a winner.

Tony!

That looks so good.

Isn't that weird? Why does it hurt your tongue?

I don't know. And how did we discover that?

So, Tony's best at sticking his tongue in lemonade.

But now, back to chips.

Have we saved Chef Mark time and the Royal Oak money?

That's nice.

Thank you. With grad.

They look good.

All right, good.

These are nice, fluffy.

Great. Good news and bad news, viewers. The good news is... My chips are as

cheap as chips.

The bad news, however... Has a slight.

Tennessee quality, too.

I don't like the grass.

I think I've got to buy the chip -making machine, if I'm really honest.

You've wolfed that, Tony. The chips are beautiful.

So, £450 lighter, but with a happy chef.

It's time to return to the bane of all our lives.

We've built a pop -up frame for my car to remind ticket -happy traffic wardens

of the law.

Huzzah, they say in medieval times.

Next, the tech that triggers the warning device.

Simi has devised a system using two timers.

The switch from the one -hour timer could effectively be a solenoid to

the second timer.

An electromagnet.

Yes. I like an electromagnet. And something called a PIR sensor.

Passive infrared.

The sort of thing that controls your security lights when somebody walks

Time to fit the rig onto my panda.

If the PIR sensor detects unauthorised movement on the windscreen within the

minute grace period, my rooftop contraption will unleash legislative

Right, I now have to record the words.

I think I might only have one shot at this.

Here we go. Is everybody ready?

Now hear this, Traffic Warden, Road Traffic England, the Civil Enforcement

Parking Contraventions England General Amendment Regulations 2015.

And in the time it takes for me to read the legislation in full, that's five

more parking tickets that we could have saved. And that is because...

No penalty charge is payable for the contravention where the vehicle has been

left beyond the permitted parking period for a period not exceeding ten minutes.

Got it? That's from Eric Pickles, Secretary of State, Department of

Communities and Local Government.

Good. Right. Let's go.

Timmy, Tony, go on, we're going shopping.

We're going up to town.

Ooh, you can have an ice cream if you want.

Road trip.

Are we there yet?

Nearly.

So, how will the unsuspecting locals react when our parking legislation

panda rolls into town?

For legislation lovers everywhere, the big day has arrived.

Exciting. It is quite exciting. Yeah.

We're off to my local town, Tisbury, where we will road test our traffic

warning device.

Normally you go to town in the car and you think, oh, I hope I don't get a

parking ticket.

But we hope we do get a parking ticket.

Or at least we hope we get a parking ticket in the ten minutes between the

expiration of the allotted parking time and the ten minute window that's been

inserted into the regulations in April 2015.

By Judge Eric Pickles.

Spay. Oh, perfect.

There.

That's a terrible bit of parking.

That is awful bit of parking, James.

Yeah. I cocked that out, didn't I? I've got to be clever.

Right, a quick reminder of how this works. Obviously, this is a prototype.

it's ever included as an option on new cars, it'll be quite a bit more refined.

But... Essentially, there are two timers in this unit here, and the display

comes up here with the timer lapse. I'm going to set this for one hour, because

that's how much parking I'm about to pay for.

At the end of an hour, it switches over to this circuit, which displays a

countdown of ten minutes on there. During that ten -minute period, the PIR

sensor is active, and if anybody tries to put a ticket on the car, the message

will crop up, and my voice will come out of the megaphone warning them that

they're... actually on the wrong side of the law. So I'm just going to finish

paying for the parking for one hour and started and turn the system on

and we're off to the hardware shop.

MyPanda is a ticking time bomb of electromagnets, tourniquets and the law.

Just waiting for a ticket -happy traffic warden.

or a member of the production team in a high -vis.

But in the meantime... This is Coffee Angels, where you get an excellent bacon

and egg roll.

The Chinese is good, if you're in on your own watching Where Eagles Dare.

Hardware's on the right.

Oh, look, the thermos with the little spoon in.

Look, screwdrivers.

Everything you could possibly want.

It turns out time flies when you're three blokes looking at tools.

You don't need a tape measure. No, I like tape measures.

With just five minutes until the panda is armed, it's time

to take our positions.

Let's have a nice refreshing cup of tea and observe our car.

With our Traffic Warden Flash team member lurking,

The time is upon us to see if our prototype warning system works.

Is she getting the ticket out?

Wait for it.

It's like the sails of the Cutting Sark.

Now hear this, traffic warden, road traffic England, the civil enforcement

parking contraventions England general amendment regulations 2015.

The regulations in full.

These regulations may be cycled as the civil enforcement of parking

contraventions England general amendment.

That's never happened before, has it? A great big sign has erected itself on the

top of a car.

That looks fantastic.

The locals are out in their tens to feed Tisbury, assume its rightful place in

the annals of history, thanks to the launch of our traffic warden warning

device.

It's quite elaborate, but it worked.

No penalty charge is...

for the contravention where the vehicle has been left beyond the permitted

parking period for a period not exceeding ten minutes. Got it? That's

Eric Pickles, Secretary of State, Department of Communities and Local

Government.

Yay!

That's so good!

That is...

A victory for common sense, it's a victory for the motorist, it's a victory

the rule of law, and it's a victory for our hero, Eric Pickles.

Thank you, sir.

We've still got to move in the next six and a half minutes.

So, we've seen off one ticket -happy traffic warden.

Now I've got to see a man about a boat.

You see, there's only one thing better than mending something like a broken

clockwork toy, and that's reuniting it with its owner, like Roger here.

Good afternoon, sir.

How are you? I'm fine, thank you. Good to see you again.

Here is your boat.

Wow. OK, would you like us to tell you what we've done?

I'd love to know what you've done.

Removed.

Ultrasonically cleaned, serviced and re -lubricated the engine, reshaped the

prop. That looks a lot better.

Yes.

Reattached the rudder to a reshaped tiller, which now locks into position on

that bar, which it didn't do previously. And you've never had a key for it. I'm

afraid I don't have a key now.

Well, you have now.

Fantastic.

But is Roger's grandfather's toy boat ship -shape and pond -worthy?

So what we thought we could do, since you've never been able to do this, is

can wind it, set the rudder, Simmy will row out in the little boat to the middle

of the lake, you can send it to him, and then he can rewind it and send it back

so that it emerges as if from your incomplete childhood, crewed by the

of your forebears.

Only 72 years after it was given to me. That is fantastic.

This boat is overdue, but it is coming.

OK, Timmy, off you go in the boat.

You wind her up, sir.

It's quite a big spring, it turns out.

So you place it in the water, simply push that aside and release, and don't

in the lake.

Amy's at the boat.

Wow.

Yes. Fantastic.

That's absolutely fantastic.

Oh. I think it's got weed on the propeller.

Do you believe that?

That was so fantastic for a few seconds. It was... I'm sorry. It was obviously

doing what it was intended to do.

That's further than it's ever been before.

In my... Since I've owned it.

Oh, God.

Right, Simmy will now send it back. It has to avoid the weed, the duck, the

and the weight of history.

Simmy, let her go.

There we go. Like right right up it.

That's fantastic.

Incredible. Oh, look.

There she comes.

That lake is a whole ocean to that little toy boat.

That's its longest voyage so far.

Yes.

I hope your grandfather is suitably pleased.

I'm sure he'll be spinning in his grave to know that finally it's got on the

water and works.

That's just incredible.

Absolutely marvellous.

I'm feeling slightly moved.

Your boat, sir.

Thank you so much. I'm absolutely thrilled, delighted.

And I think my grandchildren are going to enjoy this very much.

Excellent. Well, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to mend it.

So that's a win for my pub -based community mending programme.

And one jolly Roger.

Sam, are you going to come back or are you just going to row around all day?

Why just row around all day?

It's quite nice.

Do you want a pork pie? I've got one for you.

I'd love a pork pie.