The Repair Shop gives voice to late son with instrument fix

Seeing repairs to her late son's obscure folk instrument was "like having him restored", a mother has said. Emma MacLennan took her son Alex's Cretan lyra on to BBC programme The Repair Shop after he died aged 31. He had immersed himself in the culture of the Greek island Crete, where his grandmother was from, until motor neurone disease (MND) ended his ability to perform, according to MacLennan. The mother, from Kent, said: "He was broken by his disease but now something that meant a lot to him was back and functioning, and could give voice to him again." The family's story and the restoration of the lyra are documented in the episode of the programme airing on BBC One at 20:00 BST on Wednesday. "I was amazed at the fact that they could restore it," MacLennan said. "It's frankly something that seemed incredible to me. A very difficult thing to accomplish." The programme's stringed instrument restorer, Becky Houghton, said that the lyra was a "beautiful instrument owned by some beautiful people" and that she "absolutely loved working on this one". MacLennan said that Houghton had achieved something she "thought was unimaginably impossible". MND causes worsening muscle weakness and