Text 1: The second life of a kettle, by Aisha Rahman

An original contemporary magazine column.

The kettle stopped working on a Wednesday morning, which is how I discovered the repair café in the church hall. I had imagined a room full of experts with serious tools. Instead, a retired electrician named Mo asked me what it had been doing before it gave up, and listened as if the kettle had sent him a personal letter.

On the tables, people were bringing in lamps, a radio with a loose dial and a wooden chair whose leg had come away. Nobody promised that every object could be saved. A woman beside me was told that her cracked bowl could not be made safe for food, and she thanked the volunteer for being honest.

Mo found a broken connection in my kettle and showed me how he had spotted it. I held the torch while he worked. Forty minutes later, it boiled. I had spent the morning expecting to buy another one; instead, I left with a kettle I understood better and a small screwdriver I now keep in the kitchen drawer.

The café is not a cure for every kind of waste. Some things are beyond repair, and volunteers cannot work miracles. But it changes the question from “What should I buy next?” to “Could this be put right?” That is a useful habit, even when the answer is no.

Text 2: A complaint about the mending room, by George Latham

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this letter, written in 1884, a shopkeeper writes to his cousin about a public mending room set up by a charitable committee.

My dear Edwin,

The committee has opened its mending room in the old schoolhouse, and the ladies are much pleased with it. They sit in a row, hemming and patching garments brought by families from the poorer streets. There is a basket of buttons, a box of thread, and a great deal of talk about thrift.

I went in yesterday to ask whether they might repair the strap of my travelling case. Mrs Bell examined it and said the leather had split beyond saving. She was courteous, though I could see she would have preferred me to bring a coat with a torn cuff, which would have made a better example for her pupils.

I do not object to a sound button being sewn on. I object to the notion that every worn thing ought to be nursed back into use. A cracked jug may leak again; a thin coat may be no warmer for a new patch. There is dignity in careful work, but also in knowing when to replace what has served its time.

The room is clean and the work well done. I saw a girl mend a sleeve so neatly that the tear could scarcely be found. She was proud of it, and rightly so. Still, I cannot help wondering whether the committee has confused economy with virtue. A useful service, perhaps, provided it does not become a rule for everyone.

Your affectionate cousin, George

Both texts are about repairing worn or broken things.

Compare:

• what the writers say about repairing objects
• how the writers get across their views about repair

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