In September 2010 a team of three researchers—two cultural geographers and a photographer—set out to find and visit workplaces in the South West where people repair broken things. Notebooks and cameras were the project tools, and these tools produced an extensive archive of texts and images, a selection of which are printed in this book, the culmination of eighteen months of fieldwork.

The project was inspired by an attraction to the aesthetics of these workplaces, but also by an interest in what the practices of fixing, mending, repair and renewal could reveal about the way people value things, and each other.

In the words of Elizabeth Spelman: “…though we do not repair everything we value, we would not repair things unless they were in some sense valuable to us, and how they matter to us shows up in the form of repair we undertake”.

Bath Typewriter Service, Bath, Somerset; Cane Corner, East Budleigh, Devon; Honiton Clock Clinic, Honiton, Devon; The Cycle Centre, Barnstaple, Devon; Michael Fook Small Engine and Bicycle Repair, South Molton, Devon; Mount’s Bay Electrical, Penzance, Cornwall; Helen Warren Porcelain Repair, Budleigh Salterton, Devon; Sew-Quick, Falmouth, Cornwall; Star Shoe Repairs, Redruth, Cornwall; The Tool Box, Colyton, Devon; Thompson Brothers, Bridgwater, Somerset; New Life Upholstery, Barnstaple, Devon; F. W. Speller Boot & Shoe Repairer, Carharrack, Cornwall; The Menders, Crewkerne, Somerset; Castle Forge, Sherborne, Dorset; R. Paveley, Tailor, Fortuneswell, Dorset; Jessica Rance Woodwind Instrument Repairs, Thornmoor Cross, Devon; Biggleston’s Hardware, Hayle, Cornwall; The Abrams Bindery, Wellington, Somerset; Stick of Lostwithiel, Lostwithiel, Cornwall.

Introduction by Sarah Pink, Foreword by Nick Hand.
212 illustrations in colour, 9 in black and white.

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Reviews
Tim Edensor: Cultural Geographies
Gillian Rose: Visual/Method/Culture
Neil Sentance: Caught by the River