THE Ludlow Repair Café was busier than ever despite being in a new location.

With the Mascall Centre taken over as a vaccination station, the organisers of the Repair Café had to do some fast peddling to identify a different venue, which they found in the Elim Church premises a stone’s throw away from the Mascall Centre.

“We were concerned that the change of venue might deter people or that, despite a big advertising push, the message might not have got out there,” said Di Lyle, the founder and organiser of the Ludlow Repair Café.

Queues were forming before the doors to the Elim Church opened officially and during the morning, 30 items arrived for repair. There was the usual range of what are now predictable items: vacuum cleaners, strimmers, lawn mowers, kettles, coffee makers, clocks, radios, lamps and two sewing machines. As has come to be the case at each Repair Café, there were also some less predictable items: a back massager, a full-sized radio-gram dating back a good few decades, a broken kitchen chair, a Venetian glass necklace and a hoverboard.

As always, the volunteers arrived with their tools and their smiles and their enthusiasm and the atmosphere had its usual buzz from the time the doors opened to when everything was packed away and the last item had been collected.

“It is never possible to repair everything which comes through the door,” added Ms Lyle.

“Some things really have reached the end of their useful life but the repairers always do their utmost to try and fix them.”

The Elim Church proved to be an ideal location so the Ludlow Repair Café has a new permanent home.

Next cafe is on Saturday, July 30 between 9.30 am and 11.30am.