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This is my threatened thread , continued from 'School days : smoking teachers' thread I started and commented on earlier today.
I gave up smoking cigarettes only this week after over 40 years and it put me in mind of how I started and made me remember some of the brands I used to smoke and those machines that used to dispense packets of ten outside corner shops.
I can blame my late father for getting me started back in 1972 maybe 73. He used to smoke 'Guards' (Careeras ?). These interested me for two reasons. First was the fact they had a soldier on the packet (I was into soldiers/history in a big way as a boy) and secondly was THAT smell.
I found that although I had no friends at all, cigarettes were a talking point/something in common with most of the other kids who used to hang around. Soon I realised that if you didn't have a packet of No.6 about your person (when asked) there was something wrong with you.
In the previous thread in school days I mentioned how I used to pilfer money to buy cigarettes from the machine with only a few pence. I confess that one source of this income was from my mother's purse and coins found after the GPO guy had emptied the local telephone box. Later it came from a paper round.
We shared cigarettes down at a place called 'the bog'. It was on the edge of the countryside where we lived and was ideal for lawless smoking. Half the thrill of smoking was the fact we were mostly under 16, which was the legal age to buy fags then.
This brought on many a confrontation with my parents, particularly my father, who as I said, had, unwittingly got me started in the first place.
My father was a Primary Headteacher which made my rebellion even worse. I still remember the smell in his School office to this day. Indeed I still have the ashtrays he used, just couldn't get rid of them.
The most prized cigarette I smoked was 'Consulate'. For those that don't recall these were all white menthol flavoured fags that were advertised as 'as fresh as a mountain stream' in the days of billboards and tobacco adverts in magazines. The ultimate though were cigarettes called St Moritz. These, like Consulate, were menthol, but longer, in a flashy flat packet with two sets of ten fags in foil. They had gold bands round the middle. What a treat these were.
The staple though was the ghastly No 6's by Players. These were short and very very strong. Number 10's were even shorter and nastier and so, so cheap at 9½ per pack of ten. We'd smoke any bloody thing though, whatever we could get our hands on. I remember Rothman's, Silk Cut, John Player Specials, Embassy and Benson and Hedges. Woodbines were horrible non-filter fags that you only bought in an emergency.
I had to hide my fags from my parents. Some of the places were quite ingenious, like down the side of a stickle bricks box. Because my parents would kep smelling smoke on me, I made my own cigarette holder from an old fountain pen ! The idea was to stop my fingers smelling of tobacco smoke. It worked, too. A few years ago I even found said filter - aye THE one - in n old pencil box I'd had since I was a boy.
When I eventually became 16, my parents had no grounds on which they could locate, search and destroy. my fags. The novelty was wearing off by then, but I continued to smoke cigarettes until recently, albeit in slowly decreasing numbers.
Now in my 50's and as a prmise to my wife I've stopped the cigarettes and the pipe will have to go as well. Thankyou whoever invented the electronic cigarette !
I gave up smoking cigarettes only this week after over 40 years and it put me in mind of how I started and made me remember some of the brands I used to smoke and those machines that used to dispense packets of ten outside corner shops.
I can blame my late father for getting me started back in 1972 maybe 73. He used to smoke 'Guards' (Careeras ?). These interested me for two reasons. First was the fact they had a soldier on the packet (I was into soldiers/history in a big way as a boy) and secondly was THAT smell.
I found that although I had no friends at all, cigarettes were a talking point/something in common with most of the other kids who used to hang around. Soon I realised that if you didn't have a packet of No.6 about your person (when asked) there was something wrong with you.
In the previous thread in school days I mentioned how I used to pilfer money to buy cigarettes from the machine with only a few pence. I confess that one source of this income was from my mother's purse and coins found after the GPO guy had emptied the local telephone box. Later it came from a paper round.
We shared cigarettes down at a place called 'the bog'. It was on the edge of the countryside where we lived and was ideal for lawless smoking. Half the thrill of smoking was the fact we were mostly under 16, which was the legal age to buy fags then.
This brought on many a confrontation with my parents, particularly my father, who as I said, had, unwittingly got me started in the first place.
My father was a Primary Headteacher which made my rebellion even worse. I still remember the smell in his School office to this day. Indeed I still have the ashtrays he used, just couldn't get rid of them.
The most prized cigarette I smoked was 'Consulate'. For those that don't recall these were all white menthol flavoured fags that were advertised as 'as fresh as a mountain stream' in the days of billboards and tobacco adverts in magazines. The ultimate though were cigarettes called St Moritz. These, like Consulate, were menthol, but longer, in a flashy flat packet with two sets of ten fags in foil. They had gold bands round the middle. What a treat these were.
The staple though was the ghastly No 6's by Players. These were short and very very strong. Number 10's were even shorter and nastier and so, so cheap at 9½ per pack of ten. We'd smoke any bloody thing though, whatever we could get our hands on. I remember Rothman's, Silk Cut, John Player Specials, Embassy and Benson and Hedges. Woodbines were horrible non-filter fags that you only bought in an emergency.
I had to hide my fags from my parents. Some of the places were quite ingenious, like down the side of a stickle bricks box. Because my parents would kep smelling smoke on me, I made my own cigarette holder from an old fountain pen ! The idea was to stop my fingers smelling of tobacco smoke. It worked, too. A few years ago I even found said filter - aye THE one - in n old pencil box I'd had since I was a boy.
When I eventually became 16, my parents had no grounds on which they could locate, search and destroy. my fags. The novelty was wearing off by then, but I continued to smoke cigarettes until recently, albeit in slowly decreasing numbers.
Now in my 50's and as a prmise to my wife I've stopped the cigarettes and the pipe will have to go as well. Thankyou whoever invented the electronic cigarette !
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