When I was young we lived a caravan roaming life. Toast was an everyday part of our breakfast routine. The men used to make long handled (the handle about 15" long) forks out of wire (could be found anywhere on most farms) with a pair of pliers. A bit crude but they worked. The fork end was nearly as broad as a modern day slice of bread with three prongs. On most days when the weather was in our favour it was us kids that had to make an outside fire, or keep the one made the day going all night. We also had another job, we had to find and cut Y shaped bits of wood (6" to 9" long) to balance the fork handle in.
So the fork end was stabbed through the bread (I can't rember ever having sliced bread when I was young) and by a bit of trial and error the fork was balanced so the bread was directly in front of the flames. In those days we only used butter, magarine was unheard of and families were very much into local jams. When toasted the bread was always covered in soot and smut so we all went through the ritual of scaping it off, most important, the knife did not touch the butter and jam until the scraping had been finished. If we made an error it was a real clip around the ears!
When the weather was bad the toast was made in the caravan, using one of the forks, but this time pressing the bread against the grill of the coal fired stoves that were used then. Breakfast was slower on these days because we could only toast one slice at a time.
Every year we used to go to Cranbrook, Kent, hop picking and so on. If any of you know Cranbrook, there is a steep up and down hill by the windmill. At the bottom of the dip, from the direction of Cranbrook school to the windmill, there used to be a local bakery on the right, (a private house now) they made some fantastic bread. Again it was the kids job, at the crack of dawn or soon after, to run down the road, buy X amount of loaves and run back before the bread became cold.
I have fond memories of toast, butter and large mugs of tea first thing in the morning before we all went off to the fields to work. Thanks 'alan de enfield' for bringing this toast memory to my consciousness again.