His early morning queues were long despite having his wife, son and daughter in on the act along with a youthful additional helper. He did good business and must have made money because next to his Mercedes was a luxury trailer and we soon learned from those in the know that he had it all worked out. Bread and cheese slices, tea bags and coffee all bought for less than wholesale, the water free and the electricity for toasting there with the rent. With his family in on the job there was almost no cost for labour. Forget fresh milk! We were talking powder at best. With a low cost, fast turnaround necessity product the man was really a genius. Did all the high volume festivals April to October and spent the next six months sunning in Spain.
Approaching his stall you faced a high business-like counter with two or three queues feeding in. Behind it was a blackboard with prices, below which were various tables, some containing urns for boiling water, others piled high with paper plates and cups. The piece de resistance however was a fully automated toasted cheese sandwich making machine. A triumph of engineering ingenuity. Set on a long solid wooden table it consisted of a set of rollers onto which bread smeared with butter was laid. As the bread moved forward thin slices of cheese with a low melting point and high stringiness factor were laid on then another slice of bread stuck on top. This now passed between two thin metal burners with electric filaments above and below, and out the other side came a perfect toasted cheese sandwich. It may not have been homeboy cheddar and tasted plastic at best but oh what a joy to the famished!
The man had it nailed. No bacon, sausage or fry ups. This was a pour and smear rig with the rollers and heat doing the cheesing. Seventy pence for a tea or twenty more for coffee and two quid for the bread and the cheese. Sorry I meant toast! Not much more than ‘any spare change’ only when sold by the thousand it was Bill Gates eat your heart out.
What a joy to see it all work. At four in the morning countless figures wearing army surplus and boots falling around in the dark slamming portaloo doors and waiting for that magic moment of light when Toasty plugged into the electrics. Water up on the boil, crates of loaves dragged out of the trailer with the man himself taking charge of his tried and trusted regime like a fucking field marshal. It was actually a relief, a light in the dark to so many after a night of cider and spliffs. Teas and toasted cheese sandwiches guaranteed five-thirty a.m. just like a Glastonbury orgasm.
We didn’t put our own gear away at night. Just covered the stall with canvas tarpaulins held in place with powerful clamps while Louise or I stayed up watching and guarding, and boy, those nights were long. Then up came the lights of the toast stall on the other side of the drag like a welcome.
We soon walked over early morning. Mister Toasty knew who we were. The people who took all the big money doing the trees and the crystals! Yes, there he was with his wife who we’d christened Toastina and his sullen son the Toastevich. And there it all was. We could hear it. The roll, roll, roll of the rollers… The slap, slap, slapping on of the bread… And on, on, on went the slices of cheese… That could melt a heart made of lead! All of it going on at the back like a Hollywood Musical.
But what was this now? Serious ructions! Something rotten in the State of Danish Blue. Mr Toasty, warned by his wife of an infraction had turned on his trainee. Only one day gone and he’d apparently learned nothing. The youth was taken to one side. He’d been putting too much butter on the bread! This was only just short of being a capital offence. Everything in the toasted cheese sandwich making process had been worked out to perfection. There was no room for additions or additives. The butter had to be spread to an exact thickness or they’d be wasting huge sums of money. Mister Toasty had taken hold of the smearing knife. Now watch! Side run along the surface of the tub like so. Now, turn it across the bread running it smoothly at an angle of exactly thirty degrees. There, you see how it’s done. The Master himself had demonstrated. It was like so. And he didn’t want to have to tell him again! It was either the Toasty Way or the Highway.
The Young Apprentice took it heavily. His Master acknowledged. He was sure he would learn. End of the lesson. The Toastevich’s sullen eyes gleaming. The Apprentice would never last the harsh rigors of cheese application let alone tea making.
We purchased some tea, declining offers of free sandwiches, but wishing the Master all success. Early next morning however, Louise decided she’d try the coffee, though again declined a free offer, while I waited at the stall for some news. She’d been gone twenty minutes then returned to tell me all. Mister Toasty in high dudgeon. His Apprentice temporarily relegated to tea pouring duties for what was little short of insurrection! And so it would have been under the Articles of War had the toasted cheese rig been at sea. His sworn duty had been service at the end of the automated process where the sandwiches emerged through the burners, hot and lip smacking toasted before being wrapped up in cling-film. The wretched youth had apparently taken his eye off the machine and let them roll onto the floor. Dozens of them! All lying there in the sawdust!
Louise, who’d seen it all happen, could barely contain herself. The Toastina in an absolute rage. Was this how he showed his gratitude? Being chosen out of a hundred other applicants after he’d answered the card in the window? And not only being taken to Glastonbury, a privilege in itself, but also being paid. Was this the way young people showed gratitude these days to those who gave them a job? The cost of the sandwiches would be deducted from his wages. Now, could he remember how many tea bags went into an urn and how many cups of medium strong but definitely not strong tea could be made from a dozen tea bags?
Ah! No reply. Mister Toasty had waved a finger. So he’d forgotten all he’d been taught! And he’d seemed so promising a youth. It was all so simple. He was supposed to be good at mathematics at school wasn’t he? Well it could all be calculated by the inverse square law. Isaac Newton had done it. The more tea bags that went into the urn the less strong the tea got because you had to keep increasing the water. It was the same thing with buttering the bread. The more you put on the soggier it got until it became unreceptive to the cheese sitting on it. There, you see, Mister Toasty turned to his wife. The lad thought that making a toasted cheese sandwich was simple and easy when it was really full of complex technical problems that took years to understand. Which is why he needed to listen. Appreciate that what he was being taught came from someone with years of experience. Be invaluable for him throughout later life.
The young man had stayed silent, only nodding his head on occasion. There, he’d been given a good talking to. He could pour the tea for the next hour then go back to putting slices of cheese onto the bread. As Louise noted, this was extraordinary! Mister Toasty showing what might best be described as his softer side. It didn’t last. Half way through the morning we were startled to hear a high pitched voice shouting across the drag and next thing we knew the Young Apprentice appeared at our stall. He’d been banished! Sent away in disgrace! It hadn’t been his fault. The tea urn had fallen off the table after he’d put in the ladle to stir up the brew. It was only what he’d been told to do.
We commiserated. The best thing he could do was go back and apologise. Tell Mister Toasty he was sorry. Seen the error of his ways and that it would never happen again. The Apprentice smiled. Mister Toasty… He liked that!
We heard nothing more all day. By next morning all had been forgiven. The toasted cheese sandwich making process was running like clockwork with the Young Apprentice now back in charge of buttering the bread. This was a remarkable turnaround. The Apprentice fully back in favour at the head of the operation while the Toastina laid on the slices. The early morning clientele thronged. We heard it all later. The Apprentice had apparently contributed a brilliant new innovation into the process. Instead of the packets of cheese being left in the trailer fridge, he’d suggested that they be removed and placed close to the burners, thus ensuring that the slices were softened before being laid on the bread. This had resulted in a more rapid toasting process. The Apprentice, it seemed, had a genuine aptitude for the business and was beginning to take his duties altogether more seriously. Could it be that he might one day become a fully-fledged toasted cheese sandwich maker? Clearly the skill ran strong in him. He’d come close to falling off the edge into the dark side but now everything was different. His training was almost complete and with it would come his own personal knife for butter application.
Late Sunday morning with sales at our stall in full swing we looked up to see a wonderful sight. There, crossing the green, walking stick in hand and wearing his cape was Mister Toasty purposefully hobbling towards us accompanied on one side by the Toastina and on the other by his Apprentice. I bowed as he arrived saying we were honoured by his visit. It was of course to have a nose or maybe hope we might offer him something. I did! Would his wife like one of our beautiful amethyst miniatures? He could forget anything bigger! Wrapped and into a carrier bag it was passed to the youth. “Sales very brisk?” Mister Toasty enquired. Well he could see all the dosh flowing across the stall and was adding it up in his head. “Nothing like yours,” I said with the required deference. One junior Master to another more senior!
“The boy’s good,” he said briskly, giving his charge a wan toothless smile. “Though there’s nothing like a bit of experience.” And then, with a quick glance around, muttered, “you must be taking a shilling.” Nosy fucker, I thought. “Yeah, it’s been very good for us this year,” I said referring to the takings. “We’ll need a bodyguard to help us get it into the bank.” Like we take notes while you only do toasted cheese coinage!
It was the last we saw of him that year as he turned away and hobbled back to his stall, one of his arms on the Apprentice’s shoulder. Maybe he was lining him up for his pimply daughter, Louise and I joked later.
We didn’t see the Young Apprentice again. With the aptitude he shown for buttering bread he was a prime candidate for recruitment to the Financial Services Sector and was by now probably running a bank!
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