The Repair Shop star Richard Talman has admitted that he wouldn’t have been on the BBC show if it wasn’t for his wife – thinking that his initial call had been a prank.
Talman never intended on becoming a jeweller and businessman when he was younger and always aspired to just be a craftsman.
It was his father, Mike, who was a coppersmith who first introduced him to the joys of mental work, combined with his childhood love of rocks and gems - which turned out to be a winning formula.
After he left school, Talman was taken on as an apprentice in London’s famous diamond district, Hatton Garden and remained there until the financial crash which gave him the push to set up his own business.
He has since been running RTFJ and focused on restoring and designing bespoke pieces, launching his own range of affordable but ethically sourced jewellery.
Talman was soon headhunted to become one of the experts on the BBC series but he at first thought he was being pranked – and was close to deleting the message.
Richard explained he thought the voicemail from the BBC was a prank
He confessed: “There was an answering message on my workshop landline saying, ‘I’m a researcher for a show called The Repair Shop and we wondered if you’d be interested in coming along to repair some jewellery on the television.’
“I went to press delete because I assumed it was a prank, but my wife Googled the phone number and it came up as a production company, so I called them back!” he told OK! Magazine.
Talman feared his jewellery career was over in 2008 when the financial crisis hit the jewellery market, along with his stream of predominantly wealthy clients.
He recalled working from his shed and said: “I built myself a workshop on my garden shed and used all the tools I had accumulated.
Richard has been part of the show since 2017
“I started approaching local jewellers asking if wanted ‘jobbing done’, which is things like polishing rings, changing sizes etcetera.
“There was a couple that gave me a break, so the shed became my sort of jewellery shop until the insurance company said: ‘No, no, no, you can’t operate from your shed!’.
“So I moved into a brick building and 14 years later, here we are.”
Talman’s confession comes after Dean Westmoreland opened up on the permanent physical injury he has sustained from his years of cobbling.
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Richard Talman opens up on why he almost turned down the TV role
BBC
Westmoreland explained: “I have a squared off thumb,” and also suffers from a hand ache at the end of a long day cobbling.
“This thumb has been caught on the machine so many times that it’s now squared off.”