Jay Blades

Deedaa

JaneJudge it's on a par with the people who wonder how a painter can charge so much for a piece of paper and some paint while completely ignoring the years of practice that have gone into producing it.

yes quite, things people think are easy to to do but aren't very easy and require skill. They also still take TIME and how many people work for free!

JaneJudge it's on a par with the people who wonder how a painter can charge so much for a piece of paper and some paint while completely ignoring the years of practice that have gone into producing it.

I imagine it is quite demoralising Monica, your daughter has a craft. It is quite easy to say you could do , more of a task to execute it well or at all!

JaneJudge reminds me of when DD, who is always making and doing, decided to sell cushions, lavender bags etc etc that she had made from vintage fabrics. It was all the rage about 15 years ago.

Lots of people go to these craft fairs, nobody buys anything, they finger the goods look at what they are made of and they make comments like;'Oh, I 've got embroidered table cloths at home, which I could make into cushions like these', and having fingered the goods, looked at how they were made, they move on and DD knew darn well, they never would.

We have painted brown furniture and been very pleased with the results. It always looks good and it’s so easy. Love the fact that it could be reused rather than thrown out.

I know Monica, so much 'brown furniture' is lovely too

I thought it was a lovely program. I think he always comes across as a really nice man and he hasn't really coped throughout his life has he? He has been quite honest about how lost he was at certain points in his life.

I think the comments regarding skill level etc are not because people who restore furniture or antiques think they are better or have a higher social standing, it's because programs like money for nothing devalue skilled peoples skills and then their potential customers say 'well I saw someone on money for nothing and she said it only costs £10 to fix so and so, so why do you want £1k for a reupholster of a chaise lounge' (or similar)

I am always amazed that in this age when re-use, recycle repair is meant to be our mantra and everyone boasts of shopping for clothes in charity shops, how few people buy secondhand furniture.

We have hardly ever bought new furniture. We do a bit of antique dealing - at least that is our excuse - for regularly going to auction viewing days and auctions and the price that 'brown' furniture goes for, often beautiful furniture, goes for, would make you weep.

Everybody seems to want white furniture with the recycled look, but only if they can buy it new.

Anyone who restores furniture and stops it going to landfill has my admiration.

We've done a bit of our own or sent stuff to our local charity shop or upcycling centre rather than just dump it.

This was an inspiring programme. For a lad who admitted love and care was missing when he was a child I was so pleased he is now surrounded by people who adore him. He seems like a thoroughly decent, lovable chap and I can see why people warm to him.

He's obviously very bright to have managed to get by without being able to read for so long.

I thought his teacher was fantastic!

I agree Monica. It takes vision as well as restoration skills to imagine how to make an item attractive to a modern market and execute it to a high standard to sell.

Very well put MOnica. The semantic distinction of where his working skill set lies seems a bit mean spirited and distracting in this lovely, positive thread about a brave man's struggle and achievement.

Casdon I think it is because some people think someone who restores antique furniture and has high level refined (in the sense of exceptional) skills in restoring antique furniture, is considered further up the social ladder that someone like Jay, who takes everyday furniture, which is broken and repairs it and gives it a new lease of life in ordinary homes.

Both sets of skills are admirable.

Seaside girl. Please go to the library, borrow Jay Blades autobiography and read it, then come back and apologise.

I didn’t know there was Monica, that’s why I asked. He calls himself a restorer - but it seems he doesn’t restore to original form/colour or whatever, which is what I think some see as the difference?

What does it matter what he is called restorer/upcycler/repairer?

Is there some arcane status battle between those in this trade?

Just watched this what an inspiration for many others in similar situations. Adage you are never to old to learn

I don’t understand what you mean, Jay is a furniture restorer?

Casdon I think Jay Blades is actually an up-cycler rather than a restorer. I have seen him restore furniture but generally he upcycles furniture that is not worth restoring but will look good painted. His trademark is to paint some area in a different colour: either dip one leg on a blue chair in yellow, or paint a brightly coloured flower on a corner of a white table, or something like that. I like some of his stuff but not all.

Haven't seen him do actually craft anything since Money for Nothing. But I did enjoy Jay Blades Yorkshire Warehouse (on I-player, I think).

I worked in a special school for children with moderate learning difficulties one day a week for many years as a musician. While many of the children could learn to read to some degree, there were always a few who would never learn to read more than a few words. For these children the emphasis was very much on getting them to learn the most important words such as Danger, Private, Keep Out, Keep Off The Grass, Police, Toilets.

One of my sons is dyslexic and had always struggled with reading fiction but read non-fiction. For his English GCSE l bought him an easy reading version of Great Expectations and my own copy of Lord of the Flies, which I read to him chapter by chapter as he followed the text as best he could in his own book. He also watched film versions of both. In the last few years he has caught up on quite a bit of fiction by listening to Audible. There are ways round things. He is intelligent and this masked the dyslexia when he was small as he was not diagnosed until senior school, where he received extra help.
Hats off to Jay Blades.

^I just wish they would stop referring to him as a furniture restorer
I first became aware of him when he became famous for painting an Erccol dining chair. He painted one leg a different colour.^
MerylStreep I don’t understand what you mean, Jay is a furniture restorer?
www.jayand.co/

"How did he pass his driving test where you have to read a number plate?
That aside, good for him to 'come out' about it."

Apropos passing the driving test, I volunteered to teach reading to those with such difficulties.
The wife of a HGV driver called me to thank me for my help His reading ability was very limited and she would write out long lists showing the numbers of the roads he should take for his next delivery. This he stuck to the dash board and it seemed to work.
! am not sure that I could teach him much as he seemed to need the problem to secure his wife's attention

The next pupil was a single mother who needed my assistance to apply to the council for whatever she thought she needed..... and she was only interested in new products She was not interested in learning anything

The last was a 23 y.o. good (adequate?looking )male who opened the door to me saying"' and how old are you" I did not think this germane but answered I was, at the time in my late 40s. When I asked him to explain he said that his last reading tutor , of a similar age, had recently walked out on him, leaving him with 3 young children from his previous relationships and he needed help. His response to me was "You will do"
I can only guess what he wanted of me but it was not reading lessons. I turned and complained to the organisation that not one of their illiterates/ dyslexics needed to learn how to read before their underlying psychological problems had been addressed.
I must add that I had been described by other, orthodox students as a brilliant( and qualified) teacher of English both here and abroad

I haven't watched it yet but well done him for turning his life around.

We watched and found the programme brave and moving: we also are big Jay Blades fan especially in The Repair Shop.
The programme struck a chord because 2 of our now adult children are dyslexic and so is our 7 year DGD.
As for getting a degree when you are illiterate and or dyslexic: our son got his degree thanks to an amanuensis, provided by the University along with a laptop and some reading aids, all free of charge from the university.

What impressed me in the Jay Blades programme, apart from following his progress with his volunteer learning tutor, was the visit to the special school, and how the lads there were flourishing with mutual support and high teacher pupil ratios. Goes to show what can be achieved if money and staff are thrown at the problem. Peer ridicule can be hugely damaging.
Our DD had no shortage of books at home and being read to, but was slow to read, and held back by the slowness in other subjects in secondary school, not helped by being bussed to another site for some lessons for local political reasons, when the children were rushed there and back on a coach, with no time to speak to the tutor after lessons and in a different school. We were told in the Parents’ Evening that, “with the best will in the world I cannot give individual attention to 30 pupils” at AS level.
Earlier than that, I had asked for educational assessment and got the “August child” answer. We paid for a private assessment, which in the 90s also didn’t pick any problem. She did get the Alevels she needed, but only with a huge amount of support at home, and we were able to afford a tutor for the “30 children in the class” subject, which she has always said is the best thing that could have happened.
She went to Art College, and the whole intake was offered assessment for dyslexia, they told her that students with dyslexia often gravitate to art-related subjects as less writing is involved. She told us they did a battery of about 20 tests, and she did fine with all of them except short-term memory, which she was told was part of the dyslexia spectrum. Her assessor told her she was likely to have struggled with subjects such as languages and history, which was spot on. I felt bad because I thought it was just her being lazy. She got a lot of help with IT and could have more time in exams if she needed it, and went on to get good BA and MA degrees. We are proud of her.