Meet North Devon’s own instrument repairer from The Repair Shop

It’s one of the BBC’s most popular programmes, drawing up to six million viewers, and one of its most talented craftspeople is from right here in North Devon.

Anyone watching the final episode of the 15th series of The Repair Shop, broadcast recently, will have seen luthier Becky Houghton repairing a violin which had belonged to a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp in the Second World War. A luthier is someone who makes or repairs stringed instruments.

Becky, who runs Viva Violins at her studio in Landkey, performed a painstaking repair on the instrument before playing The Blue Danube for its owner, whose late wife was the granddaughter of its original owner. She performed the tune with two of her children.

The violin had been used in the notorious Theresienstadt transit camp in Czechoslovakia.

Becky has been on the programme since 2021, having first picked up the violin at the age of nine. Later moving to the viola, she decided at the age of 13 that what she really wanted to be was an instrument maker.

Above: Viewers will also be able to see Becky Houghton, (back row, second from left) with other repair experts from The Repair Shop at Christmas, featuring Dame Helen Mirren. Credit: BBC/Ricochet Ltd/Nicky Johnston

But, in the male-dominated industry of the time, it proved extremely difficult and it was only much later that she was able to enrol at the Newark School of Violin Making. She has now been making and repairing violins, violas and cellos for around 20 years and her customers come from all over the country.

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She explained: “There are more of us than you think, but it's finding the person that you trust with your instrument that’s so important. Because it's part of you, isn't it? And once people appreciate your work, and like your work, then you're okay.”

She was first contacted by a researcher from The Repair Shop in 2020 as they had a violin which needed repairing. The programme had featured one violin previously, which had been repaired by the renowned craftsman John Dilworth, a programme she had watched.

“I was just so overjoyed to be called,” she said. Her ‘screen test’ consisted of a video recorded in her workshop by her son on his mobile phone. “I just chatted to him. And he said, ‘you’ve got it!’

“I said ‘don’t be silly, they'll hire someone else’.”

The Covid pandemic put paid to the initial repair, but then in August 2021 she was contacted again and has completed one repair per series, as well as taking part in the Repair Shop on the Road spin-off series.

This year she made an unprecedented three appearances, and has also taken part in The Repair Shop at Christmas, which will be shown over the festive season.

This programme will feature some very special guests, including Dame Helen Mirren, who is seeking the repair of a badly broken cello.

Smashed by soldiers as its 14-year-old owner fled Nazi-occupied Europe, the instrument now belongs to a care home of which Dame Helen is a supporter and she would love to see its voice restored, so that it can entertain the residents and their families this Christmas.

Becky said: “It’s going to be a fantastic show. It nearly killed me. It was a lot of work, but it’s going to be brilliant.”

Becky believes the enduring popularity of The Repair Shop is its human element. She said: “It’s the connection with the people that aren't here anymore.

“It’s the connection through these items that bring everyone together. And it’s the healing of the people, I think, that brings them in, because we're not just repairing the item, we're doing something for that person as well, which is powerful.

“Items hold the memories and energy of people. And I really believe that we’re helping, not just to restore a beautiful item, but we’re helping that person in other ways that we can't maybe even see outwardly.”

She says this is especially true of musical instruments: “You’ve got that extra layer of sound. Because if you listen to an incredible song, you feel it, don't you? You feel it in your body. So it’s just got that extra layer. And it’s an extra layer of difficulty as well, because I've got to make sure everything sounds brilliant.

“So, I’ve got all that as well to do. It’s attacking more of your senses, when you play an instrument. It makes you come alive. Music is so, so important.”

Filming for The Repair Shop takes place in a barn at the Weald and Downland Living Museum in West Sussex, and all the repairs are carried out on that site. This can cause particular problems for the repair of instruments.

Becky said: “My glue gels incredibly quickly in the cold, the damp, the heat and the drafts and everything. So it’s really, really difficult.

“And what I love is, when you’re in the middle of something particularly difficult, they ask you to talk about it and you don’t want to talk about what you’re doing, because you can’t, you’re concentrating. And they say, ‘can you do it again?’ And I’m like, ‘nope, can’t, I’m stuck!’”

Filming will begin again early next year and Becky is hoping for another instrument to come with a powerful story behind it.

She concluded: “It’s all about the story and the human connection. Because we can all identify with these people in some way or another that come on the show. They’re bearing their souls, really, aren’t they? It's very brave of them.”