Smoking for Jesus
I was talking to an old friend the other day.
It was one of those chain conversations, as I call ’em, where the topic is constantly changing as new subjects crop up out of the old ones, and a chance remark can set the whole chat off on a new tangent. That’s the kind of conversation I like as I never know what we are going to end up talking about.
Anyhows, one of the tangents led onto the subject of smoking. I should point out that my friend doesn’t smoke, or at least he has never smoked in my company.
“Do you remember the days when smoking was perfectly normal?” says he.
“I do indeed” says I. “The days when non smokers used to have a box of cigarettes on the coffee table in case visitors should call.”
“Right” says he. “When anyone called, it was part of the welcoming thing to offer them a cigarette along with a cup of tea, or maybe something stronger.”
“And people used to proudly display Waterford Crystal ashtrays or even Waterford Crystal cigarette lighters” I added.
“We used to have a strange thing in my house” he said. “On Christmas Day when dinner was over my mother used to pass around the cigarettes. Everyone took one, including two aunts who wouldn’t look at a trifle in case it contained alcohol, and those two aunts didn’t bat an eyelid at a six or seven year old being offered a cigarette. We would all light up and solemnly smoke our cigarettes in honour of the day.”
“Were you included?” says I.
“Indeed I was. Sure I was the six or seven year old. We all had to smoke them, though I didn’t really enjoy them that much. It was all part of the ritual.”
“Like a peace pipe” says I. “Those were the days.”
“They were indeed” says he. “In those days smoking and in particular pipe smoking were signs of gravitas. Look at the likes of Jack Lynch or Churchill.”
We spent a happy few minutes listing off all the people who smoked, such as Einstein, Brunel and Harold Wilson.
“Those days are gone” says he sadly.
“Isn’t this just a little heretical?” says I. “You being a doctor and all.”
He just laughed.
I recall visiting the GP in the late 70s and on every doctor’s desk, by law, there was a smouldering pipe and a pint mug of tea. Worse still I’m betting that tea contained not only lethal fat-content ‘blue’ milk but S U G A R. Which is no doubt why I , and my peers, will all catch type 2 diabetes …if the lung Cancer, Emphysema, cardiac arrest or galloping acne doesn’t see us all off first. Â
Good God! Not SUGAR? That is terrible.
There was a time when every doctor I came across smoked like a chimney. At least when they got the chance. Especially the ones in the service. I even recall the days when smoking was allowed in hospitals where docs and nurses would stroll down the hallways with a smoke stuck in their hatch.
Indeed, having been the victim of a meeting between an errant lorry and my motorcycle I ended up in hospital in the late seventies. I distinctly remember the ashtray neatly placed on every bedside locker. We all smoked in the ward and probably got better quicker as a result.
I can’t help wondering — if smoking is such a sure-fire sentence of death — why the population didn’t plummet when smoking was considered normal?
Because in those days it was harmless. The dangers were only invented later.
Harold Wilson was only a beer-drinking pipe-smoker in public – in private places, he was brandy and cigar man, but that didn’t quite chime with the carefully crafted image of the working man’s politician.  Such nuances of perception never bothered Tony Blair, he was a complete twat both in public and private.
(apologies if I have recounted this before….blame old age and a lack of goOOOod drugs).I have a book of old photos of life in the little village in Brother Grimm country (like ‘Deliverance’ but with pixies and trolls) where The Bestes Frau In The Welt comes from. Photos going back to the late 1800s. One of those photos shows the young men (ie teenagers) of the village gathering for a crafty cheroot/cigar smoke after mass of a Sunday. They are ‘hiding’ away, ‘apeing’ their fathers who would gather at the pub (I assume) after church to smoke cheroots,drink and hold intense debates regarding the exact Koine or Aramaic translation of which ever passage the Father had preached on that day, interpolating their discourse with the thoughts of the great Theologians of yesteryear and Latin quotes of the Church Fathers…..not. The boys are all stood there in their too large suits, washed so many times the cloth was thinner than a politician’s promise, waistcoats and hand-me-down leather shoes (they probably wore clogs during the week), with their wide brim hats (to stop the sky falling on their heads…it was that kind of place…almost ‘Norfolk’ in its bucolic ‘charm’) . Their cigars almost certainly handrolled from tobacco leaves from their fathers’ fields.Of course there was a disapproving caption under the photo decrying that then as now smoking was seen by young people as a sign of being adult.Then one noticed the date on the photo.1913.
âLike a peace pipeâ says I. âThose were the days.â … and hookahs.
I recall visiting my childhood GP – one Doctor Grossart, the waiting room and behind door at the actual consulting room always had the aroma of baccy smokeand floor polish. Once passed the hallowed threshhold there was an ahtray for the good doctor and his visitors (my mum) on the desk who both puffed away throughout his consultation, also the faint whiff of whiskey on his breath. Me and ma were talikng about him years later and she confirmed he used have a quick dram or two between appointments from the bottom desk drawer, happy memories, no wonder their handwriting was so undeciferable!