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News was released this week that King Charles is to make a guest appearance on Â鶹Éç Television’s The Repair Shop as part of the Corporation’s centenary celebrations.

The programme usually features members of the public bringing heirlooms in great need of restoration. In an enchanting world of repair and renewal a team of gifted craftspeople ensure that visitors return home thrilled as a result of the transformation and resurrection of their personal treasures.

The upcoming Royal edition, recorded whilst the King was Prince of Wales, also features the Prince’s Royal Foundation students learning traditional crafts such as blacksmithing, stone masonry and wood carving. Like the resident Repair Shop experts, for me, these apprentices embody a counter-cultural spirit of preservation and sustainability with a heartfelt hope for the future.

As long as I can remember, I’ve lived in what might easily be described as a throwaway culture. When something breaks - throw it away and get a new one. Many items we purchase are not built to last. We are meant to upgrade or renew before setting off for that therapeutic Saturday morning trip to the tip which somehow makes us feel better.

In earlier times, in different religions, a spiritual attachment to certain buildings and treasured objects were the focus both of public worship and personal devotion. In the medieval period for instance the church was chief patron of the arts and a whole range of crafts from carpentry to glasswork was used to create a glimpse of God and a foretaste of heaven for the faithful.

One such craft – the potter and his clay – is frequently referred to in the Old Testament. The Prophet Isaiah explains how God is the potter and we are the clay. We have a clear choice as to whether we go along with the kind of world that needs to be moulded and crafted into the future and for the benefit of all. Isaiah writes that so much of the world needs to be put right but that repairing what’s gone wrong, rather than throwing it all away & starting over again is clearly God’s choice and hopefully ours also.

It was Sir Christopher Wren, the great visionary who designed St Paul’s Cathedral and many other churches after the Great Fire of London, who said that architecture should aim at eternity. Isn’t it reassuring that in our own time, faced with the choices we have, our attitudes towards preservation and renewal should similarly aim at being strengthened into the future?

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