Friday evening I took a stroll down memory lane, after hearing the news that the US military aims to go completely smoke free within 20 years. That is, smoke free in the tobacco sense
When I was at Nana’s house (which was often) one of the most absorbing toys was a battered tin box – about 7”x5”x3”, the colour of gun metal or pewter, a bit blackened & battered
Embossed on the lid – a roundel containing the head of a bearded sea captain, the familiar logo of Players Navy Cut
Nana was proud that her eldest son had qualified for the government issue rations – the 100? 200? 500? non-filter cigarettes which had been packed inside
Now it was packed mainly with cigarette cards. I remember the series of famous cricketers, film stars, aeroplanes, birds & wild flowers. There may have been more. Most were very old & seemed to have come from packets of Woodbines, probably Granpa’s weekly ration of 10
I loved looking through, sorting, & later reading the information on the back
I knew I had to be very careful with them. They were precious. Memories
My uncle had died, aged 19, in the North Atlantic
I was no more than 5 years old – perhaps as young as 3 – the day Nana & I went for an unusually long walk. It was summer, a hot sunny day. The grass was high, the wild flowers rampant. Nana was carrying a bunch of garden - or perhaps florists – flowers
I sometimes think I only imagine that our destination was a graveyard
Nana was crying, still crying on the way home. I picked an especially big bunch of wild flowers to decorate the house when we got home
I was puzzled, disturbed. I knew that my uncles death made Nana (& mummy) sad. But why cry now about something which happened long, long ago – before I was even born? She never cried about her own brother, the one who drowned in the canal when he was a daft daring lad. He was just an Awful Warning - the canal is NOT A PLAYGROUND
I could check the details – was his body returned for burial? Or was Nana perhaps marking an anniversary at some other family grave?
Somehow I prefer to leave it be, undisturbed, a memory respected. We never went there again
Two world wars did much to foster – with government encouragement – the spread of smoking cigarettes for their calming effects. And, as women were conscripted during WWII, they too adopted the habit in greater numbers
Then it was payback time, with the BBC television news telling us in 1962 that smoking causes lung cancer
But I wonder if my feeling, that the smoking epidemic coincided with a (historically unusual) decline in Anglo Saxon alcohol consumption & public drunkenness would stand up to analysis & scrutiny
Manchesters magnificent Temperance Hotel – the Trevelyan, opened in the 1860s, boasted a grand gentlemens smoking room
All human societies have their mind altering drugs, & their methods of social control, mixed with social disapproval
So, when you add everything up (in a metaphorical sense – I am not turning this into the kind of cold cost benefit analysis so excoriated by Michael Sandel) are the harms done by tobacco worse than those done by alcohol?
Is the damage done by a well regulated market, supplying secure tax-paying employment, so much worse than what flows from illegal drugs, whose consumers these days, despite the Just Say No campaigns, are regarded as so much cooler than poor sad nicotine addicts
Even Prince Harry ‘confessed’ to having succumbed to the weed during his tour of Afghanistan (though only OPCs)
I wish the US military well with its efforts to get rid of smoking in the forces, but I really do have my fingers crossed about what might replace it
By coincidence, on Saturday morning a group of young boys got on the train – aged about 3 to 7. Though clearly very excited about whatever expedition they were embarked upon they were well behaved & sat down quietly
The 2 who were in my sight each had a large plastic folder full of cards – footballers I think. They were happily comparing their collections & discussing the finer points
Some attractions stay the same
Links
And still the young men die:
More booze than surf: teenagers and the Newquay experience
Crowds line streets as bodies of eight soldiers arrive home from Afghanistan
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