12 Comments

I remember my Dad smoking 40 a day Senior Service (he'd been in the RAF, not the Navy). When he got a really good job he started smoking Dunhill International. And that's what I started smoking at the age of 14, because he had to smoke shedloads of them to get the same kick he used to get from Senior Service!! By 15 I was into Rothmans (which were OK and relatively cheap back then - 27p for 10, and I was earning 35p an hour in my part-time job at the Wimpy Bar). Then my parents realised I smoked. Dad said, very earnestly, "Just don't smoke anything that doesn't come in a packet." Too late by half, eh.

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Thanks for your comment Steph. 27p for 10! When I started in the mid-90s they were about £3 for 20 and when I stopped in 2010 they were well over £5. They’re around £10 now. I don’t know how anyone can afford to smoke any more!

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ps I did really well in my O levels. We're talking 45 years ago here!

- but yes, it was normal to smoke. Far more so than now.

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An evocative article that brought back happy memories of my family life when a child.

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Thanks Shelagh 🙏 really glad you like it. We’re very honoured that Robert kindly agreed to let us have an extract from My Own Worst Enemy. I’d definitely recommend the book!

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Feb 26, 2022Liked by Dan Hayes

Beautifully written

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Feb 26, 2022Liked by Dan Hayes

Fantastic bit of writing and very reminiscent of my own childhood. I'm buying the book!

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Thanks John. I can definitely recommend the book. We had two extracts to choose from and both were equally good. Enjoy!

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lovely piece of insightful writing by Robert Edric-the gradual reduction of smoking in society shows that we have moved on in this direction at least

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Thanks Ron. Yeah, I grew up in the 1980s and it seems strange to me so it must seem even stranger to younger people. Glad you liked it.

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My maternal grandfather smoked. He was the only person I knew who chain smoked and about whom one could also say that he chain-drank tea. He would sit just outside the kitchen with a big brown betty tea pot and drink the contents while smoking and telling stories. He was a chef, so never smoked in the kitchen itself. My grandmother kept the cigarette cards in an old plastic bread bin. It had a white body and pale blue lid with a handle moulded in it. My younger brother and I played endlessly with the cigarette cards - there were animal pictures and pictures of native trees as well as sportsmen of yesteryear (they were less interesting as with one or two exceptions such as the cricketeer Don Bradman no-one knew who these sporting heroes were). We sorted out decks of cards to play snap or to play a memory game where you turned over the cards, with the aim of getting a matched pair. I'm struggling to recall the brand my grandfather smoked, but I think it was probably Embassy - a white packet with a red strip on it. I hated the smell of the cigarette smoke, but loved the smell of the unburnt tobacco in the empty cigarette packets. Years later my grandfather developed emphysema and allegedly gave up smoking - but my grandmother and I (we both never smoked) could smell the smoke on him, after he'd nipped outside on some spurious errand or other.

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I grew up in a house where everyone smoked. Sadly most of them died from smoking related diseases , all only in their early fifties. If only we knew then what we know now. Smoking was advertised as being trendy and sexy with Bette Davis declaring her love from behind a cloud of cigarette smoke. Great days though.

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