Memory Lane
Giving up smoking is the hardest thing I have ever done, and I miss it like crazy. In those days, before the health risks were fully acknowledged, everybody smoked. It was part of life and surrounded with glamour, ritual and camaraderie.
Cigarette packets were seductively designed and cigarette advertising was everywhere. Women’s magazines advertised Virginia Slims, specially aimed at female smokers and carrying the slogan ‘You’ve come a long way, baby.’
How we loved smoking. We lit up in restaurants, on the train, at work, and even in hospitals. We smoked in cars, on planes, at the cinema and certainly during the interval in the theatre. We smoked in other people’s homes, often being offered cigarettes from their onyx cigarette boxes. We smoked through meals, between courses and in the pub. Every high street had a tobacconist. Smoking calmed and stimulated, and aided concentration
Cigarettes came in a host of wonderful varieties. Those who considered themselves poets or intellectuals would smoke Gauloises or Disque Bleu; elegant women would puff at pastel-coloured cocktail cigarettes or black, gold-tipped Balkan Sobranie, and no-nonsense men smoked Senior Service or Player’s Navy Cut. Or if they wanted to cut an extra dash, they would smoke a pipe or Havana cigar.
The paraphernalia also underpinned smoking’s allure: lighters inlaid with precious stones, foot-long ebony holders, and gold and silver monogrammed cases, often handed down as heirlooms. On a visit to the Fabergé Museum in St Petersburg, I saw dozens of intricate, priceless cigarette lighters, cases and holders, crafted as gifts for visiting dignitaries. And now? Gone, all gone. Today, smoking is a furtive, shamefaced activity. Smokers are pariahs, banished out of doors to indulge their filthy habit. Cigarette packets show images of diseased lungs. And although the health dangers are real enough, I can’t help feeling that something has been lost.
By Liz Hodgkinson, who receives £50. Readers are invited to send in their own 400-word submissions about the past
More Memory Lanes on the Oldie App See page 6