BEFORE the popular BBC TV series The Repair Shop was even a gleam in a television executive’s eye, Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch knew that its premise of bringing cherished objects back to life would catch on.
In Mrs Tatchell’s teddy-bear shop, Bear It In Mind, in the New Forest, customers regularly asked for beloved toys to be repaired. “Every other customer would say: ‘Can you mend my teddy bear? Her paws have gone. Can you give her new paws? He’s lost his eye. . .’ We soon realised there was this little niche in the market, because people needed that done,” Mrs Middleditch says. “They would come in and reel off the life story of their bear, how they’d had it as a child. The Repair Shop was thinking ‘This is wonderful! It’s new!’ But we had been doing it in our own workshop for years.”
Her fellow Teddy Bear Lady, Mrs Tatchell, adds: “When the production company found us to be in the [Repair Shop] pilot episode, we were the only ones who weren’t surprised at the reactions from people. Because we’ve been seeing it for years: people needing that reassurance, that knowing that their bear would last a bit longer.”
The Teddy Bear Ladies have worked together since 2006, when Mrs Tatchell first opened her shop in Beaulieu, and Mrs Middleditch, a “teddy-bear artist”, called by to sell her handmade bears. The proprietor agreed, on condition that Mrs Middleditch spend one day a week in the shop making bears so that people could see the skill and craftsmanship that went into the toys. “Soon, I was there every day,” she remembers. “We just got on so well.”
Mrs Tatchell was a Christian when the pair met. “Amanda and I met in 2006, and I was already a Christian. My family and I came to faith about 28 years ago. My husband had grown up, used to going to church, but hadn’t taken it on himself, and I just did it at Christmas, the classic thing.
“But we decided, once children were on the cards, that we really should look into it and decide. My husband was working with a lady who attended this really good family church, and said that that would be a good starting point. We went along — a little bit nervous — and we stayed. We did an Alpha course, and, with the help of the wonderful congregation, the minister at the time, and the Alpha course, that’s when I came to faith.”
AS THE part Mrs Tatchell played in her local church grew, Bear It In Mind became a place of outreach. “By that time, I was quite involved in the church, even though my family was quite young, and Amanda was just open to listening. At this point, the restoration side of the business was quite new. People would drop in, particularly the young adults wanting a chat or a cup of tea, and Amanda was very much part of all that, even though she hadn’t taken that step of faith herself.
As Mrs Middleditch takes up the story, “I came to faith six or seven years ago,” Mrs Tatchell interjects: “It took ages!”
Mrs Middleditch continues: “I’d been sat on the fence for an awfully long time. I don’t know what I was waiting for, but it never felt quite the right time. I used to ask Julie a lot of questions. But my family have been members of a Baptist church in Eastleigh for nearly 30 years.
“One Christmas, they invited me to a candlelit Christmas service, which is beautiful. I absolutely felt that was where I should be. We came out, and everybody was having a fellowship moment over mince pies, and my brother laughed because I said: ‘Can I come again?’ He replied: ‘You don’t need a ticket or an invite, just come whenever you want.’ I started going regularly, did the Alpha course — which was incredible — and got baptised.
“I have quite a scientific background, and always found that a struggle with evolution, and that side of it. At Alpha, you could ask all those questions, and then say, ‘I’m going to take this leap of faith.’ On the Alpha away day, I had one of those incredible moments with the Spirit, and I knew from then on that that was where I wanted to be; that was what I wanted. We’d known each other for 12 years. Julie had to hang on and wait for me.”
While Mrs Middleditch remains at her original church, Mrs Tatchell has moved to Gloucestershire, and now attends an Anglican church in a local ecumenical partnership. “We’ve been there three years this summer. It’s a family church, quite small. My husband is about to take on the role of churchwarden. I do what I can, when I can. Filming and my work take me away.
“It’s a wonderful, Spirit-filled church, though the congregation is a little older. But, for us, it was quite an interesting change, because we’d raised our family in a very buzzy, family-oriented Anglican church, with all the groups, and all the activities, and all the events going on. To walk into a church, just the two of us, thinking ‘This is different. Is this right for us?’, but feeling such a warmth when we walked in, such a presence of the Spirit, we just knew we were meant to be in that church; and that’s where we stayed, and we do love it.”
FAITH also infuses the duo’s television work. The warmth of The Repair Shop encounters between the Teddy Bear Ladies and participants radiates off the screen. “It’s so important to remember that, although everybody says Repair Shop participants have come to tell you a story, it’s not a story: it’s their life. We’re asking them to open up publicly about things they’ve never spoke about, or have kept it bottled up. It’s such a privilege to stand there, and for them to feel they can open up to us,” Mrs Middleditch says.
“It’s a hard environment, because they have at least six cameras, if not more, pointing at them. A whole ring of people. Sometimes, we have to stop and start again,” Mrs Tatchell says. “It’s important for us to make them feel as if they are just having a conversation.” She and Mrs Middleditch see it as “part of our job that they feel supported, and not just stood there while we’re firing questions at them, because that would be horrible”.
Prayer interlaces interactions on and off screen. “Lots of prayers shoot up in the [Repair Shop] barn,” which she describes as “a wonderful place. It’s always happy, a really great place to work. But there are times when a job has to be done quickly, and we get a bit anxious, but we just see things differently.”
Their response is to “take it quite calmly, sit down, and pray about it”, Mrs Middleditch says. Her partner agrees: “And we pray before people come into the barn. And, if somebody’s bringing an item to us — hand on heart, not every time, but specific ones — we just know we need to pray. Or we pray for each other if we know one of us might be struggling. We love all the people we work with: it’s a fabulous team.”
The Repair Shop’s presence in TV schedules since 2017 has also brought the duo the profile to become children’s authors — a long-held ambition for Mrs Tatchell. The origins of Bartie Bristle lie in the logo that she designed for her shop in 2006 and that Mrs Middleditch then transformed into a fully formed bear.
“Fortunately, through our being a little bit more well known, an agent took us on and helped us. It took us two years to get the book out. We are co-authors, because we believe Bartie and his world is not just my writing; and where God has put us is not just my writing. God is the author of creation, and we are both the authors of Bartie Bristle’s world and his story — right down to the fact that Amanda created him in the first place, that physical little furry bear.”
In August, they will be on stage at the Big Church festival, reading excerpts from Bartie Bristle and Other Stories and leading a craft session. “We are so excited, because [the book] is not overtly a Christian book,” Mrs Tatchell says. “It doesn’t tell Christian stories, but we know it comes from the Spirit. I believe when I’m writing I’m Spirit-led in the subjects. But, for people who we don’t know, who we know to be Spirit-filled, to recognise the Spirit in our work just blew us away.”
Bartie Bristle and Other Stories: Tales from the Teddy Bear Ladies by Julie Tatchell and Amanda Middleditch is published by Walker at £14.99 (Church Times Bookshop £13.49); 978-1-5295-1325-7.
