Death of a Toaster

Last night, I was toasting some bread when there was a loud bang, a flash of bright light, and all the sockets went down. After a moment's stunned silence, I unplugged the toaster and re-set the circuit board. Nothing extraordinary there, I'm sure. But this toaster was extraordinary, and I mourn it's passing.

To explain why, I must give you a little bit of history. I was a medical student in Malta in 1977, when a medico-political dispute broke out that led to the closure of the medical school. I was, at the time, just about to start the fourth year of training. Locked out of the medical school, we were all desperate to continue our training. The Commonwealth desk at the British Medical Association was wonderful. Over the next two months, they found places for all of us who wished to continue training at British medical schools. Which is why, one sunny day in early September, I and others from my course were sitting nervously on a British Airways aircraft waiting to take off from Malta.

I landed in London that day with a large suitcase, a teddy bear, a radio cassette player and nowhere to sleep that night. I also had a terrible cold. I have felt better. Fortunately, I was able to make contact with a friend who arrived to rescue me and take me home to his parents for two days. They were very kind, but soon I had to fend for myself.

A room was found at the hall of residence of the medical school in London to which I had been assigned, and I started to settle in. And the first things I decided I needed were a kettle and a toaster. The kettle has long since bitten the dust, but the toaster has accompanied me everywhere ever since. For 35 years it has moved from student accommodation, to junior doctors' quarters, and eventually to my own home and through four further moves. It was showing it's age, and was distinctly un-modern, but it worked and I was fond of it. It reminded me of the evenings when I would bring the bread and the butter in from the window sill for two slices of toast before setting off for the hour's walk to the Albert Hall for the Proms; it recalled evening with friends when we ate beans on toast and drank cheap red wine; it had seen me through illness, and Glyndebourne breakfasts with chums. It was a part of my life.

So, I shall now buy a new toaster, but I am not quite sure that I am going to have the heart to throw the old one away.