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

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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". Furniture dealer turned TV star Jay Blades chats about his style in Wolverhampton". Shropshire Star. 18 August 2018 . Retrieved 31 October 2019. I loved the honest, conversational style achieved with ghost writer Ian Gittins. What impressed me most was that Jay Blades doesn’t spare himself from an intense, unforgiving spotlight that sometimes belies the jovial cheeky chap we know from his television programmes. There are passages in Making It that are violent, brutal and very frequently accompanied by surprising expletives that, far from alienating the reader, draw them in and have the effect of making them love, admire and respect Jay Blades all the more. He has made mistakes, some of them quite appalling, and yet he comes across as the kind of man you’d want in your life. Even though I know the author is now a successful celebrity, I frequently felt tense as I read, wondering how he was going to overcome the latest obstacle life was throwing his way.

BBC One - Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51 BBC One - Jay Blades: Learning to Read at 51

Finding success when the odds for it to happen are against someone shows the true character, courage, and vulnerability needed to make it happen. Barr, Sabrina (27 October 2022). "The Repair Shops' Jay Blades defends 'breaking royal protocol' with King Charles". Metro. Blades and his wife Jade set up a charity based in High Wycombe, Out of the Dark, to train disadvantaged young people in furniture restoration. [6] The charity lost funding, their marriage broke down, and he became homeless. [6] He was supported by friends and by the Caribbean community. [6] Around the same time, television producers saw a short film about the charity which led to his work as a presenter. [6] He moved to Wolverhampton and established Jay & Co, a social enterprise to support disadvantaged and disengaged groups. [11]

Although some of the aspects covered in Making It like the author’s dyslexia, have been alluded to, or even well documented, in recent times, Making It is a wonderful, detailed insight into the life and personality of Jay Blades. 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! His life was full of challenges, and from an early age, he learned what a being person of colour truly means in a world created to give advantage and favour white people. He is a furniture restorer, but most importantly, he has worked relentlessly to rescue those that find themselves in similar situations as he did. Whitfield, Tony (25 September 2022). "Jay Blades says Repair Shop fixed him after his difficult childhood". Daily Express.

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

He is best known for presenting The Repair Shop, Money for Nothing and Jay Blades' Home Fix, and co-presenting Jay and Dom's Home Fix. [14] [15] 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. He has never read a book (including his autobiography – he told his life story to a ghostwriter) and once took a letter he knew was urgent from the hospital out on to the street to ask for help from a passerby because he had no one at home to help. On The Repair Shop, the production team brief him verbally before each scene rather than provide written notes. Exclusive: The Repair Shop's Jay Blades marries Lisa Zbozen in romantic Barbados wedding". 4 December 2022.

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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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Making It by Jay Blades | Waterstones

Against the odds, though, he took these circumstances to grow and create change within the communities he worked and cared for. Birthday Honours 2021: MBE for Repair Shop's Jay Blades". BBC News. 11 June 2021 . Retrieved 12 June 2021. 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.' In September 2022 Blades appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs and said that his childhood had been "blighted by racism and violence". [18] [19] In October 2022 Blades was the lead presenter for the edition of The Repair Shop which featured King Charles III. [20] [21]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. 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. 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. In June 2023, Blades presented Jay Blades' East End Through Time; a three-part documentary series shown on Channel 5, [24] which was followed by The Midlands Through Time in October. [25] Personal life [ edit ]

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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? 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)! 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] Murphy, Nichola (26 September 2022). "The Repair Shop's Jay Blades 'wasn't ready' to be a father". HELLO!. Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped Me Repair My Life (Bluebird Books, 2021) ISBN 9781529059199Good 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. 😊