Entertainment
Dame Judi Dench given ‘powerful’ glasses to see late husband’s watch on The Repair Shop-Ruth Lawes-Entertainment – Metro
Dame Judi was thrilled by the gift.
Dame Judi’s late husband’s watch was fixed but she was unable to admire the work properly (Picture: PA)
Dame Judi Dench was given two pairs of ‘powerful’ glasses on The Repair Shop to enable her to see her late husband’s watch.
The 87-year-old actress enlisted the help of Jay Blades’ team to fix a watch that had belonged to her late spouse, Michael Williams.
The James Bond star had gifted the timepiece to Liverpudlian actor one year after they tied the knot in 1972.
The Repair Shop craftspeople set about the magic and restored the sentimental timepiece, which had been carried by Williams until his death in 2001.
After being presented with the spruced-up pocketwatch at the Edinburgh TV Festival in August, the Iris performer welled up, saying the restoration work was ‘more than I could possibly hope for.’
However, Dame Judi was unable to see the team’s work until horologist Steve Fletcher loaned her his spectacles.
Steve said: ‘She was looking at the watch and couldn’t see the engraving we’d put on the back. So I loaned her my glasses and she said, “I can see it so well now.”‘
Williams ‘treasured’ the pocket watch (Picture: Getty Images)
The Oscar-winning actress was then presented with two pairs of glasses – which provide up to five times magnification – by the TV star and could see ‘everything about the watch’ in what became a ‘lovely moment.’
Steve told the Daily Mirror newspaper: ‘She could see everything about the watch and it was a lovely moment. She could use them as really powerful reading glasses. Sometimes the simple things work.’
Dame Judi married Williams in 1971 (Picture: Getty)
Dame Judi told Steve: ‘You’re so very kind.’
The Belfast actress – who was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration in 2012 and has been coping with sight loss ever since – previously explained that she had to ‘find a way’ through her vision issues.
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She said: ‘You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult. I’ve had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again.
‘So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!’
The Repair Shop is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
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