'There's never a dull moment'- Devon volunteers open new Repair Cafe workshop

• Watch Bob Cruwys' report

A group of volunteers in Ashburton are giving a new lease of life to old items after opening a Repair Cafe workshop.

It will allow them to rescue and restore even more broken or worn out items brought in by the community. 

The Repair Cafe has been running in Ashburton for five years, getting old appliances working again, fixing furniture and generally saving people's possessions from being consigned to the scrapheap. 

So far nearly two thousand items have been saved.

Volunteer Michael Cranmer said: “A lot of the things I do have got cherished memories, not necessarily toasters and modern things like that but a lot of the things I do were dad's or grandad's or grandma's and people have got those memories and it's important to keep them going.

“Strange enough this week I have repaired two bibles, old bibles, Victorian. Two giraffes, believe it or not, a couple of sledgehammers and the list goes on so there is never a dull moment.”

The volunteers have moved into new premises due to outgrowing their previous home and now have space to store and work on projects.

Some have a lifetime of experience. As well as being a farmer, Charles Hill-Smith repairs old items in his spare time.

He said: “I think, from a society point of view, that we waste huge amounts of stuff, possibly because we don't realise it can be repaired, but sometimes because we can't be bothered to repair it and I can, so it's great fun.”

Gill and Brian Raynor have worked hard to restore a classic model yacht that arrived as a box of bits. 

Gill said: “I think it is very useful to recondition, repair, pass on, rather than throw away. We are too much of a throwaway society now and I think it's really important.”

The repair cafe runs on donations to keep going and the owner of the yacht has now given it to them to auction off and raise more money to help them preserve even more cherished possessions in future.