A British couple received a message from their deceased son that left them emotional. The couple lost their son, Christopher, who lost his life to cancer in 2010. The hidden message was discovered by the couple when they were renovating their family home. Here’s what the decades-old message said.
John and Margaret Irvin were shell-shocked when they found a note their son had left in their house before he passed away. The note was written by Christopher as a 14-year-old in 1989. He passed away at 35 after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2010.
The couple recalled the emotional moment on an episode of the BBC’s The Repair Shop. The series helps people restore and renovate things that have been passed down for generations and heirlooms. On the show, the elderly couple shared how they decided to renovate their kitchen, which prompted the incident to unfold.
“He would often scribble little notes that he would leave around the house, some of them saying, ‘I love you’,” the wife shared. While renovating the room, the couple found a note that their son had scribbled on the wallpaper decades ago.
“This is original wallpaper. Friday 4:15 8th December 1989. Please leave this wallpaper, Chris,” the note read. Margaret shares how unbelievable it was for them to stumble upon the note.
“Where they’d taken one of the original cupboards off the wall,” is where the note sat hidden. The note that was usually hidden behind the cupboard was suddenly revealed to the couple, leaving them in shock.
Grieving parents John and Margaret shared their tragic story on The Repair Shop, where experts crafted a heartbreaking tribute pic.twitter.com/My8cUIT8NM
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) August 29, 2025
In an attempt to preserve their son’s note, the couple decided to apply to be on the show. The wallpaper and the plaster it was stuck to were in pieces after the builder attempted to remove it from the wall. “It would be so nice to have it back,” Margaret shared. She also shared how nice it would be a “real treasure” if the note were to be restored.
Dominic Chinea, who is an expert in restoration, could fulfill the couple’s wish by managing to preserve the note. After the successful restoration, Mrs. Irvin spoke about how the result had turned out to be better than she “would have imagined it to be.”
Inside The Repair Shop’s heartbreaking restoration that left viewers in tears https://t.co/2k8xNX9wen pic.twitter.com/fzYkpESQzy
— The Mirror (@DailyMirror) August 29, 2025
The couple wasn’t the only ones emotional over the restoration. Viewers of the show rushed to social media to say how touching the whole story was. “That was such a lovely repair, and the tears flowed,” one user wrote.
“I love #therepairshop and that bit of old plaster with writing from their son that passed away was a brilliant job and soooooo moving,” another added.
