Repair Shop fans break down in tears as a guest reveals the heartbreaking reason she needs an urgent repair.

The latest episode of The Repair Shop left fans in floods of tears as one guest revealed the heartbreaking reason she urgently needed to restore her precious family heirloom.

Wendy Bray presented BBC show hosts Suzie and Steve Fletcher with her late mother’s old leather writing desk, which had great sentimental value but needed some TLC.

She explained that her parents gave her the case when she left home at age 17 and she later used it to write letters home when she served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force for war – always using blue paper.

Her mother had signed the Official Secrets Act, which meant she could not discuss her role in the war until the late 1970s.

Wendy said: “So much love has been put into it, so many letters home have been written from it and it seems such a shame that it’s really in this state now.”

She told Suzie and Steve that her wish was to see the box restored to its former glory so that it would look the same as when she saw her mother using it as a child.

However, Wendy revealed the tragic reason why she needed them to repair the inheritance so urgently.

She said: “I want to give this to my daughter for my granddaughter. I have to do it quite early because I have stage four cancer.

“So, as hard as it is for me to believe sitting here, probably as hard as it is for you to believe it looking at me!” I only have four or five months left.

“So, I want to do this, so that it’s done for her.” This is something I gave to my daughter to give to my granddaughter and it reminds her not only of me but also of her great grandmother.

Suzie, a leather worker, has promised to give everything to make her mother’s writing desk look like new again.

As Wendy left the workshop, Suzie said: “So Wendy explained that unfortunately she had limited time, which is something I thought was very brave of her to tell us. With that, it gives me a huge responsibility.

The expert then got to work dismantling the heirloom in order to rebuild and strengthen it.

Wendy returned with her daughter to collect the suitcase and was captivated by its transformation.

She was particularly moved when she discovered that Wendy had left a surprise inside: blue paper.

As she stood up, she said, “Oh, it’s so beautiful! It’s so charming! Oh, what a sweet thing to do, it’s really nice because there was always blue paper in it!’

She expressed her gratitude to Suzie for the transformation and told her that she had also restored memories, which are extremely important to her.

One fan on social media platform X wrote: “I’m not crying, you are. Every time with this show.

“The Repair Shop is really testing my waterproof makeup tonight,” echoed a second.

While a third simply posted a series of crying emojis.

This isn’t the first time a restoration of the series has left fans with tears in their eyes.

In September, viewers became emotional as they listened to Camilla Greenwood talk about her stuffed animal, the sole survivor of a house fire that sadly claimed the life of Camilla’s mother Linda.

Camilla said of the bear: “It was given to my mother when she was little and it was with her throughout her childhood.”

After craftsmen restored his bear, fans rushed to social media to say the episode left them “in pieces” and was “heartbreaking”.

The Repair Shop is available on BBC iPlayer.