Hot TV CHOICE

Isn’t THE REPAIR SHOP (8pm, BBC1) the nicest show on TV? It’s even lovelier than Bake Off, where Baked AlaskaGate soured the tone a few years ago, and somebody’s pineapple upside down cake landed the right way up on the floor.

On the first of a new series tonight, watching how carefully furnishings expert Kirsten Ramsay fixes the cracks in a dog-shaped drinks table got me choked up.

It’s quite a naff item, really, but it belongs to a blind guy, Nigel, who explains that he likes the feel of the table’s textures. So Kirsten treats it like it’s the crown jewels. It’s just all very lovely and reminds us that sentimental items are priceless to their owners.

We all know about American soldiers fraternising with British women during the war and the heady, brief romances that followed. But what’s less well known is that about 2,000 babies were born in the UK to white women and black American GIs, and that growing up mixed-race in postwar Britain was no picnic.

In BRITAIN’S SECRET WAR BABIES (9pm, C4), Good Morning, Britain reporter Sean Fletcher meets Mary and John, both 77, whose fathers were black Americans their mothers had affairs with during the war. Growing up as the only black kids in rural communities, they faced isolation and prejudice, even from their own family members.

As they describe a deep desire to understand their US heritage, Sean sets about using DNA databases and army records to track down more information and get them some answers. There’s tragedy and triumph, like the best episodes of Long Lost Family.