Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My Life

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However, aside from being entertaining, interesting and engaging, I think Making It is an important book. Through his own, very personal experiences, Jay Blades gives permission for readers, especially men, to show and accept their vulnerability without embarrassment. He gives hope to all that, rather like the items that feature in the television programme The Repair Shop, for which he is most well known, there is always the possibility to create something new and beautiful from something – or someone – broken or damaged. a b c d e f g h i j k l Saner, Emine (7 September 2020). " 'I spent a long time being this macho man': Jay Blades on love, loss and the liberating power of tears". The Guardian . Retrieved 26 December 2020. He appears to be highly thought of in the UK (he has been awarded an MBE) yet his book highlights a propensity to begin things with great enthusiasm, only to move on to something else some time later. This is true of his schemes to help disadvantaged youth, of which three are described in detail (Mr. Blades is now only involved in the third one, but more distantly as his TV work increases and takes up more of his time). It also applies to his relationships, yet he expresses no regrets or remorse for successive failures and break-ups. Against the odds, though, he took these circumstances to grow and create change within the communities he worked and cared for. Blades was appointed co-chair of the Heritage Crafts Association in August 2022. [13] Television and radio [ edit ]

Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair

Blades, Jay (27 July 2021). Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My Life. Pan Macmillan UK. ISBN 9781760987633. Jones, Emma (19 April 2020). "Jay Blades' degree in criminology led him on path to star in The Repair Shop". Daily Mirror . Retrieved 11 September 2020. THOUGHTS: Read this book slowly. Take the time to truly assimilate the personal journey of the phenomenal flawed human being who presents and carries the TV sensation" The Repair Shop" on his shoulder. We had our hardships, and there were times that we didn’t have a lot of food and didn’t have a lot of money. But that didn’t stop me having the time of my life.' The fabric of Jay's life apparently constitutes a weft of ebullient happiness anchored down by the warp of failure and depression. There are success stories and moments of barrel-bottom-scraping, and it's all told in the most genial and friendly of tones, using a very matter-of-fact London vernacular - so watch out, because there's a lot of unexpected cursing! The Jay of The Repair Shop is a screen persona that hides the street-friendly real-life Jay!Jay has certainly had a colourful life, and it was a roller coaster reading through the highs and lows. At times I liked him, his passion and compassion, his drive and determination earned my respect, and then at times I couldn't understand his choices and wanted to shake him. Either way, I was totally invested in his life. It was an engaging and compelling memoir. Furniture dealer turned TV star Jay Blades chats about his style in Wolverhampton". Shropshire Star. 18 August 2018 . Retrieved 31 October 2019.

Jay Blades announces his new book Life Lessons - Prima Jay Blades announces his new book Life Lessons - Prima

Barr, Sabrina (27 October 2022). "The Repair Shops' Jay Blades defends 'breaking royal protocol' with King Charles". Metro. a b "The Repair Shop's Jay Blades reveals incredible story discovering he has 25 siblings". MSN. Archived from the original on 13 July 2020 . Retrieved 12 July 2020. THE BAD: Painful to read about vents that happen decades ago when racism run rampant in many levels of the UK's society.

BBC Radio 5 Live's Word Matters

Making It is an inspirational memoir about beating the odds and turning things around even when it all seems hopeless, by Jay Blades, the beloved star of hit BBC One show The Repair Shop. In one book, Jay shows the very best and the very worst of society - the amazing impact Gerald and his family have had on Jay, through to his absent father and the horrific racism and prejudices that have sadly followed him throughout his life. So many people in similar circumstances would have given up and not even tried to make anything of their lives, but fortunately for Jay (and for us!) he has often had the support and the love of the right people at the right time in his life.

Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped - WHSmith

All in all, I think you get a very interesting insight into the actual human that is Jay Blades, not the TV persona, not a public persona, the real deal. I think it's a little light on self-recrimination, but, as someone said, " Everyone is necessarily the hero of [their] own life story." and I do think that the book indicates that he's trying to live by the credo that he closes the book out with: " all you can do is be good". This is a brilliant book! I’ve been a fan of Jay’s for years as an avid viewer of The Repair Shop, but I didn’t really know anything at all about the Jay underneath the flat cap! Good morning all, I'm 50 today and I wanted to post this photo with my head down, (don't worry I'm not sad) I'm doing this as a mark of respect to EVERYONE, that got me here. 🙏🏽 Thank You. 😊 Jay Blades, presenter of The Repair Shop, has decided it’s finally time to learn to read. He has been told he has the reading age of an 11-year-old. Throughout his life he has found ways of avoiding the written word, and this film digs deep into how this has shaped him. I have a major question, however, viz. how, given that undiagnosed dyslexia had left him more or less unable to read or write, he was accepted into university to study Philosophy and Criminology. Surely he should have acquired adequate reading skills first?Whitfield, Tony (25 September 2022). "Jay Blades says Repair Shop fixed him after his difficult childhood". Daily Express. It would seem from the book that he has done some amazing work with boys on whom most people have given up, helping them to acquire skills and crafts that should enable them to earn a living and avoid a life of crime. He learned the hard way that as human beings, men are also allowed to feel emotions and deserve to be in tune with their feelings and display them. Exclusive: The Repair Shop's Jay Blades marries Lisa Zbozen in romantic Barbados wedding". 4 December 2022. Birthday Honours 2021: MBE for Repair Shop's Jay Blades". BBC News. 11 June 2021 . Retrieved 12 June 2021.

Making It by Jay Blades | Waterstones Making It by Jay Blades | Waterstones

We had our hardships, and there were times that we didn’t have a lot of food and didn’t have a lot of money. But that didn’t stop me having the time of my life. I admit to being a trifle skeptical about the content, I suspect that an autobiography doesn't have to be quite as strict with the truth as a fully-cited biography does. However, I do think that that bones of this story are true and it's worth noting that Mr Blades pulls no punches when it comes to explicitly detailing what society might be inclined to call his "failings of character". I liked very much that he calls out what he sees as failings in others and himself, although I do feel he was a little lax in applying the same standards to himself that he'd like to see in others, most specifically his father comes in for a pretty heavy lambasting throughout the book for his absence, deservedly so, but Jay has essentially repeated the "crimes" he so vehemently decries and although he's somewhat salving the wounds with money, the outcomes of some of his children's life indicate that there's potentially some element of Jay's absenteeism that could explain where they're at. That said, as he states in the book, " You can't live your kids' lives for them", he's done what he can, with who he is and even if he contributed to some of the problems, at least he's still trying to do something about contributing to the solution as well. Blades lives in Ironbridge in Shropshire. [11] He has three children. His youngest, a daughter, is from his first marriage and he has two sons from previous relationships. Blades married his second wife Lisa Zbozen in Barbados in November 2022. [26] [6] [9] [27] [28] Honours [ edit ]

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Personally for me the writing style let it down a little. There was such an over use of exclamation marks and it - perhaps irrationally - annoyed me. It felt like everything was being shouted or exaggerated. Though admittedly I think this exclamation enthusiasm decreased in the second half of the book, either that or I noticed it less. Daly, Charlotte (27 October 2022). "Social media goes wild for King Charles III's presenting skills on The Repair Shop". Country Living. The book covers the period from Blades' birth (in 1970) right through to the publishing date in 2021 (thus just missing his MBE). It ranges through an estate-bound but happy childhood and his initial run-in with racism when he enters secondary schooling, on to a troubled and violent adolescence that acts as a prelude to a most remarkable emotional rollercoaster of a life. It's not a long book, but I still zipped through it pretty fast because the chapters kept ending in cliffhangers (i was still reading at 01:30, 02:00 on consecutive nights)! Finding success when the odds for it to happen are against someone shows the true character, courage, and vulnerability needed to make it happen. Also in that year he released a memoir, Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My Life, published by Pan Macmillan UK. [12]