BBC The Repair Shop expert resurrects memory of dead princess in 'miracle' restoration

A guest on The Repair Shop had been left devastated when a gift she received from her best childhood friend - an East African Princess - had shattered. An overzealous cleaning session had left the spiritually significant "healing bowl" damaged, and she was desperate to restore it to its former glory.

The woman had become close friends with a member of the Royal Family on the island of Zanzibar, where she once lived, and she believed the last surviving gift she'd received from the beloved Princess had magical healing properties. "There were no formalities - anyone could talk to the Royal Family," she reminisced.

She'd received the gift, engraved with mint green Arabic script, before leaving for London at around the time of the Revolution - and with six decades passing since it needed some TLC. "I want to bring back the memory of my friend, Princess Aman - and the memory of Zanzibar," Serena told the understandably daunted Repair Show crew.

They quizzed her on whether the bowl truly did heal the sick when filled with water - and she replied: "I felt better!" Ceramics restoration expert Kirsten Ramsay quipped: "Considering it's a healing bowl, I need to get healing it!"

She quickly discovered evidence of where Serena and her sister had tried to do a repair, commenting that the adhesive they'd used had turned yellow. However, with some epoxy resin and specialist adhesive techniques, she set apart reversing the botched repair job and replaced it with an expert version of her own.

Kirsten empathised that the now elderly woman was desperate to "see the symbol of her East African youth restored" - especially as the Princess who gave it to her has sadly now died.

An emotional Serena had revealed during the show that she'd been with her in the hospital 15 years earlier, for her final hours.

The curious team even had the Arabic script inside the bowl translated, discovering that it read: "Drink from this cup with conviction and forever one will be enlightened."

To the amazement of Serena, Kirsten managed to recreate the precious memento so that it looked as good as new again.

"I can't believe it - what I saw in [my childhood] is just the same! It's magical!" she gasped.

"I never expected to see this so beautiful!"

The savvy Repair Shop team also managed to restore a book filled with a mixture of recipes and secret wartime codes that had been sent to Bletchley Park many decades earlier, making for a very eventful episode.

The Repair Shop is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.