BBC The Repair Shop turns emotional as guest opens up on dad's heartbreaking death

The Repair Shop took an emotional turn after a guest shared the heartbreaking story behind his cherished item. During Wednesday's (June 4) episode of the popular BBC programme, the experts were on hand to restore a number of things for the public.

Will travelled to Oldham to pick up a vintage fruit machine that is close to guest John Geraghty's heart. He inherited the one-armed bandit from his late dad after a tragic accident.

His dad bought it as a birthday present for his mum 48 years ago when they moved into their new house. However not long after he bought the gift John revealed that his dad got into a horrific car accident.

Opening up about the moment, John explained: "He (his dad) gets a phone call from a very good friend, he has broken down. Me and my dad always wanted to help somebody out."

He continued: "We both jumped in the van, reversed off the drive and as we did a friend of mine appeared. My dad said, 'why don't you jump out of the van, you say here with Neil I'll be ten minutes, I'll be back'"

Reminiscing on the heartbreaking moment, he went on to say: "A car came out of a junction without stopping. By the time the fire brigade got there it was unfortunately, it was too late."

Taken back Will replied: "Must've been tough." John continued: "Yeah, because my dad was my soulmate. You know I'm an only child and me and my dad did everything together.

"I think about it every year and on that day 28th of June and on his birthday. We were so close and it still hurts now."

When asked what his dad was like he revealed: "He was the life and soul of the party, I would probably describe him as." Turning his attention to the fruit machine he admitted: "It's the one big thing we've still got that I can walk past it everyday and it reminds me of my dad and it reminds me of my mum. It'll be lovely to see it restored and working again.

It seemed to be a big job and it was in desperate need of expert attention as the mechanism is jammed, the paint scuffed, and John has never seen the lights working before/

Arcade aficionado Geoff Harvey got stuck into the repair and after a long few days he managed to get the machine working again, leaving John emotional and grateful for the restoration.

You can catch up on The Repair Shop on BBC iPlayer