Toast

A couple of weeks back we awoke to the smell of burning toast. Two hours later we could still smell it as we put our son Dan into his taxi. Someone in the neighbourhood must have been seriously burned their toast.

Minutes after leaving, Richard the taxi-man called us to say that he had seen smoke coming from a neighbours house. Could I take a look?

Our street comprises of semi detached family homes and bungalows. Most of them are occupied by people who are in, or nearly in retirement and some more elderly people. Two doors away from us is a house occupied by an elderly couple, both of whom are invalids. Medical staff visit the house day and night and they have a young male relative who lodges with them and keeps his pimp-mobile in their drive; so we have always assumed that they were well cared for. This was the house we found with thick smoke swirling upwards from the kitchen door.

I banged on the open door and called out but there was no response, so I went in to the kitchen where I found a saucepan full of boiling fat on the electric cooker. Floating in the fat were six, black lumps of charcoal that were once sausages. Ignition was seconds away. So, what to do? Turn off the cooker? Put a cover on the fat to keep oxygen away? Dial 999?

It wasn't that simple. The oven was so dirty that I couldn't even see the knobs and the kitchen was such a mess that finding a lid was out of the question. I just grabbed the saucepan and took it outside, then turned the oven off at the mains. I wish now that I had tipped the entire contents of the pan over the shiny, black BMW in the drive.

Going back inside, I started banging on doors and shouting but had no response. The rest of the house (downstairs at least) was just as filthy as the kitchen but eventually I found the man-of-the-house sitting in an armchair watching TV. He was completely unaware of the crisis which, within minutes, could have taken out his home and the one next door. If he had discovered the problem, I'm guessing he would have spilled hot fat all over himself and/or set himself alight. I didn't hang around but called Social Services to let them know what had happened. Ironically, the adjoining neighbours run a cleaning service!

As I write this, I'm still shaking.

Sequel to follow.