Jay Blades has said that he’s been “getting a lot of grief” after touching King Charles III during a special episode of The Repair Shop.
During The Repair Shop: A Royal Visit, which also celebrated the BBC’s centenary when it aired in October, the then Prince of Wales’s bracket clock and a piece made for Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee by British ceramics maker Wemyss Ware were fixed.
Some have apparently complained that the presenter broke royal protocol by touching Charles.
In the one-off programme, Blades greeted the 74-year-old with a cup of Earl Grey tea, presenting it in an HRH mug and putting his hand on Charles’s arm.
Moments later, Charles returned the gesture by placing a hand on Blades’s back.
Blades told The Times in a new interview: “Well, there was plenty of royal security there to say don’t touch the geezer, but they didn’t. He’s only a human and he touched me too. So I think everyone should pipe down.”
Blades also said that after he got to know the King on the episode, he now thinks he would have been fine growing up on his council estate in London, as he has got a “good heart”.
The 52-year-old presenter also said that there is more to Charles “than people know” after the repair team travelled to see him at Dumfries House in Scotland.
The furniture restorer also spoke openly in the interview about his difficult time growing up in Hackney, which saw him being put in a police van after a stop and search for a “kicking”, and also stabbed as a teenager in his arm.
The newspaper reported that the King is keen to keep in touch with Blades, so that heritage craftspeople can help students from the Prince’s Foundation Building Craft Programme – a training initiative that teaches traditional skills such as blacksmithing, stonemasonry and wood carving.
The Repair Shop returns for a Christmas special on BBC One on Boxing Day at 8pm.
Additional reporting by Press Association
