Extinguished art

SIR – Today marks the 100th anniversary of Fag Day, when a fund was officially approved by the War Office and Admiralty for British soldiers and sailors in need of cigarettes and tobacco to calm their shattered nerves in a time of war. Voluntary funds were set up to dispatch cigarettes and tobacco to troops at home and abroad.

It is not without irony that this centenary month saw the introduction of standardised plain packaging on cigarette packets. Packets in 1917 were miniature works of art. Now they are only fit for recycling. Barry Russell

Secretary, The Cigarette Packet Collectors Club of Great Britain Heathfield, East Sussex