Toast

I'm a huge fan of Nigel Slater so when I saw that there was a BBC television drama based on his childhood I felt very intrigued. It is called Toast on BBC, I missed it on the TV but caught it on BBC iPlayer.

Unfortunately his mother died when he was still a young boy and his relationship with his father was turbulent. There was a really beautiful scene where his dad goes out and leaves him and he feels alone and scared. He puts on a record and gets one of his late mother's dresses from the wardrobe pulls it close to him and smells it. He then starts dancing with the dress, we are transported back with him to a time where he is dancing with his mother in that very same dress. It was such a poignant moment in the film, and it really struck a chord with me. It just reminded me of how wonderfully evocative textiles can be. It may be just to provide physical comfort but often there is a more emotional attachment. The young Nigel not only used the dress to comfort him emotionally, he used it as a tool to re-live a precious moment with his mother. Later his father comes home and finds his son cuddled up with the dress. He removes it, holds it close to him and smells it in exactly the same way as Nigel has previously and breaks down. His tears saturating the dress. Previous to this, the father has been portrayed as very distant to his son, sometimes extremely cold and angry. In this scene it breaks down all of these barriers and humanizes him and probably shows him at his closest to his son, even though Nigel remains asleep throughout. I just thought it was wonderful to show how powerful an item of clothing can be.

I have focused on a very small part of the film but it really is worth a watch. Its beautifully filmed and deals with so many issues which relate to childhood and upbringing.