I had definitely seen the act of cigarette smoking as the embodiment of all that was stylish since I had been allowed to occasionally go to early evening showings at The Wardona, Northfleet and sometimes even The Regal in Gravesend with Molly from number 31. You have to realise that there was a great deal of smoking taking place on the Big Screen back then and not just in those films more suitable for adults although the latter were of course those we were most keen to see by claiming we were both definitely fourteen. The only time we were challenged was by Priscilla Horsfall who was my form at Wombwell Hall even though she was more than a year older than the rest of us. On the occasion in question she was importantly doing her first Saturday job and as Molly had in fact reached the magical age she was deemed to be a Responsible Adult and so we both gained entry anyway once a threat of calling the manager was made. But that is of course all beside the point.
It
was hard to imagine Humphrey Bogart without a cigarette and though I can’t
remember the first time I saw Casablanca and whether or not I was with a bona
fide adult, I do clearly recall that when Rick Blaine first appears it is as a
hand lifting a half-smoked cigarette after signing a cheque. Not very long afterwards Paul Henreid lights
up as he tells Ingrid Bergman that although he is terrified he must nevertheless
attend a dangerous meeting. What a
hero! And long before The Marlboro Man,
in Stagecoach, John Wayne, one of my mother’s favourites bends forward to light
a cigarette from an oil lamp impervious to coyotes howling in the background
and clearly not so very far away which was a very sexy gesture. Little wonder that so many young men rushed
to emulate him. And it wasn’t just the
lads because once Anne Bancroft blew smoke into Dustin Hoffman’s eyes whilst
trying to seduce him in The Graduate most of us avid cinema-goers, male and
female alike were well and truly hooked.
I
personally became nicotine smitten at the age of fifteen when I witnessed James
Dean becoming a misery to himself and a burden to his parents in Rebel Without
a Cause. I was with Pearl Banfield from
the top of York Road because Molly now worked at Featherstones and was often
busier than previously. Pearl was a
less than satisfactory cinema companion who never took up the smoking habit and
seemed unmoved by the charms of James Dean.
Although by the time East of Eden came to Gravesend I was completely
beguiled by him, and he was still an enthusiastic smoker, I was not actually
smoking myself simply because I lacked the necessary finances for funding the
habit.
In
defence of that younger generation of which I was a part, it perhaps hardly
needs to be pointed out that everyone around us smoked and it seemed to us, always
had done. Strangely my own parents were
not smokers, my mother only taking it up after my father died, astonishingly on
the advice of our family doctor who said a cigarette and half a pint of
Guinness on a Saturday evening would be beneficial and help to calm her
nerves. She never became as dedicated a
smoker as me and remained a ten Woodbines a week woman for years, eventually
giving up the habit with ease in her late sixties.
I
had been working at Francis, Day & Hunter in Charing Cross Road for at
least six months before I felt financially stable enough to even begin but it
was with enormous pride that I ordered ten Du Maurier at the little kiosk on
the concourse at Charing Cross Station.
I was feeling so sophisticated in fact that it was a full five minutes
before I realised that I had forgotten the matches and had to rush back and
purchase them, almost missing the 6.42 fast train to London Bridge, Woolwich
Arsenal, Dartford and Gravesend, and whatever destinations followed which I’ve
now forgotten. I would set about practicing smoking on my way
home and by the time Gravesend was reached I would undoubtedly be an expert!
I
chose an empty carriage far forward on the train because I wanted no witnesses
to anything that might go amiss and have me categorised as a rank amateur. It was a good thing I did because it took a
full six or seven minutes and half the matches to get the first stylishly
tipped Du Maurier lit. But at last the
job was done, it was burning nicely as were several of my fingers. I had been
told that in order to get the very best out of nicotine I had to inhale the
smoke, alien as that sounded and so by the time it was half burned I managed to
do so with some difficulty. That very
first inhalation was unpleasant in the extreme, my initial physical reaction
being first light headedness followed by extreme vertigo, followed by nausea. Why on earth did anyone in their right mind
take up smoking? But of course I knew
the answer to that question was because it was to be seen as grown up,
sophisticated, a woman of the world. However,
it was a week or two, or even three, before this particular woman of the world
became confident enough to display the new and admirable habit more
publicly. Even I knew that turning pale
and gripping my handkerchief nervously to my lips rather spoiled the ambiance
of sophistication I was working towards and definitely was not going to impress
a great many people. To create the
right vibe I just had to get on top of the nausea and dizziness upon inhalation
problem. And of course with time and
effort I did and within a few months you would never have known that I hadn’t
been born with a cigarette in my right hand.
For
economic reasons I had to give up du Maurier quite early in my smoking career
and move on to Bachelor Cork Tipped which I was assured by magazine advertising
was a great deal healthier let alone cheaper.
By the time I was seventeen I was smoking ten a day which had not
initially been my intention at all. For
my mother, strangely, smoking remained a one a day, two at weekends habit. Perhaps she had experienced the same
inhalation problem as me and wisely chose not to overcome it. All of my aunts with the exception of Rose
whose husband did not allow it, smoked profusely and Old Nan, their mother had
always rolled her own and continued to do so her whole life. All newly born first and second cousins were
liberally smoked over from the day of their birth and as they grew older were
accustomed to running to the corner shop with instructions to buy ten Weights
or ten Woodbines for any adult who was running low.
Such
purchases made by eight and nine year olds were never rejected by shocked
shopkeepers and as the younger members of the family grew old enough to embark
upon their own smoking habit it was never suggested by those older and
hopefully wiser that it might be more sensible to give it a miss. Little Violet, being raised by Old Nan
because of the death of her mother, got her first job in retail at the age of
eleven, as a Saturday shop assistant for Big Elsie in the small store at the
bottom of Iron Mill Lane that primarily sold sweets, tobacco and ice cream. She proudly began to buy her own Woodbines
by the age of twelve and not even her employer discouraged her. Old Nan’s only comment revolved around her own
disappointment that even having a grandchild working in the trade did not seem
to afford her cheaper prices and she would have expected at least the courtesy
of a substantial drop in price for her own Hearts of Oak and Rizla papers. It only confirmed her opinion that Big Elsie
was a Tight Arsed Mare if ever there was one.
Much as I
deplored the money that smoking of any kind seemed to be able to scoop up I did
not at this stage seriously consider giving up which was a pity because it
might have then been considerably easier than it proved to be later. It certainly had not brought the glamour
into my life that it seemed to promise and I was still not getting the invitations
to glitzy events that I had once hoped for.
Neither had it brought handsome young men in sheepskin coats with names
like Damon or Nico into my orbit. I
longed for men knee deep in invitations to film premieres who regularly dined
at The Ivy and spent summers in the South of France. They failed to cross my path, however, and
there were times when I wished I had not launched into smoking with quite as
much enthusiasm.
I was
clearly destined to spend more time by myself so when the most alluring
advertising campaign for Strand cigarettes hit the small screens of the Home
Counties I certainly found it reassuring.
The ads showed a Frank Sinatra look-alike in trilby hat and trench coat
wandering rain swept streets and despite his good looks and sex appeal
remarkably alone. I made serious
attempts to read the novels of Camus and Sartre – not altogether successfully,
and began to save for a proper trench coat.
And naturally enough I changed immediately to Strand, the cigarette that
displayed for all the world to witness that existential angst was bearable;
just as long as you chose Strand for your smoking pleasure. Meanwhile Cliff Adams’ evocative Lonely Man theme
reached the charts and the man in the trench coat became an immediate icon of
Really Cool and the sale of similar rainy weather wear increased.
But what
should have been an all-round successful advertising campaign turned out to
have a twist in its tail. At that time
smoking was most definitely considered a very sociable activity and being alone
enough to have to be consoled, propped up even by a particular cigarette brand was
suddenly seen as socially disastrous.
No matter what impressionable young women like me might have thought,
sales somewhat astonishingly all at once evaporated and the cigarette itself
was withdrawn without comment. But
somewhere along the line of progress towards commercial disaster, the ad
campaign had hijacked enough aspects of existentialism to turn that corner of
philosophy into a joke which festered largely unrecognised by people like me
who were beginning to find coffee houses intellectually exciting if they
attracted bearded young men in black polo necks clutching copies of paperbacks
with titles like Sartre’s Concept of Freedom.
The Strand advertising image had been
extraordinarily powerful and had touched a raw nerve in the public psyche. I ditched the trench coat idea and looked
around for a duffel coat. I also began
to knit a black sweater and decided to take an interest in modern art. I had
already changed to menthol cigarettes because all the advertising assured me
they were unbelievably healthy.
Very personable, inciteful article on smoking ~ Thanks
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