The Toastmaster General
One oddball custom from my family was the ceremony of toast.

Toast was and still is, an exceedingly important part of my family’s life. It has leaped with my into my own dwelling and it will probably live on.

My father, like his father before him (before he went mad) and me (when I am in my own house), is the ‘Toastmaster General’.

This is what happened on a typical Saturday morning.

My father would be first up, put his dressing gown on, and go downstairs loudly exclaiming that ‘The Toastmaster General is up and about his business’.

We all had to run downstairs in our jim jams, dressing gowns and slippers.

‘The Toastmaster General is preparing the wheat slices’.

We all then had to sit down at our breakfast bar and not say anything lest we interrupt the toast ceremony whilst my father took the four slice toaster out of its cupboard, plug it in whilst arranging it on its little custom made toaster tray. He would then take out four slices of Hovis white thick sliced (it had to be this exact type of bread – my mum once bought medium sliced and it got chucked in the bin), check them for consistency, and reverently place them into the toaster width ways (this was to ensure an even brownness). He would then make sure the dial was at setting 8.

‘The Toastmaster General will now prepare the ancillaries’. (We didn’t really know what this meant but we correctly guessed it meant knives and stuff)

Whilst the bread was toasting, he would then take out the breadboard, plates, cutlery, and jam from the fridge and prepare them on the breakfast bar. He would then check the butter was soft enough (it was always left in a covered butter dish overnight) and placed it before us.

‘The wheat slices are now toasted and have become toast.’

This meant that the toast had popped up. Inadequately or unevenly browned bread was binned. He would take these hot slices of brown and put them onto the breadboard and would urge us to quickly butter up or the toast would cool down and wouldn’t melt the butter adequately and the toast would be ruined. He would then quickly put four more slices of bread into the toaster.

We had to rapidly eat our buttered toast (mains) before the next slice arrived so we could jam it and eat it as pudding.

‘The Toastmaster General’s job is completed for another day’.

Then he went back to bed leaving us sated and free to watch cartoons.


I wouldn’t say I was totally surprised when he has his first breakdown, but the second and third did come as a bit of a shock.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Mon 24 Nov 2008, 17:08, 3 replies)

This has made me giggle
Your father is great!
( Olembe Refuses to write in this space, Mon 24 Nov 2008, 17:39, closed)

Was this
his toaster?
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 24 Nov 2008, 21:02, closed)

Hehe
My dad could be the human talkie toaster.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Tue 25 Nov 2008, 11:08, closed)