Oh the memories. My mum was a smoker, I remember when I was about 4 she used to lay on the spare bed in my room while I went to sleep. It would be dark but I could see the glow of her ciggie and if I moved my head really fast I could see a continuous red line from her smoke. Pretty sure I would have gone to sleep much quicker if she wasn’t smoking.
Kate, my memories of Mum and Dad don't seem to include the smell of smoke. And certainly never with Dad. But with Mum as she aged, I have to say it was pretty strong. She would use a LOT of Giorgio perfume!
Ah yes, parents who smoke! My dad had a very fancy Meersham pipe with a sculpted man's head as the pipe's bowl. He explained that, in time, the colour would change to a warm, golden as he smoked away. (Much like his lungs, I think now!) But he was not a super heavy smoker and eventually quit. I myself leaned towards those slim, minty "ciggies" (haven't heard THAT in a while!) but only as a teen and only when out drinking. I was never hooked. Love your descriptors here Prue, esp that lighter in the car and the ashtrays, so excellent.
The pipe is a story on its own, Sue. Imagine the carving!
When I pulled Dad's pipe cabinet down from the top of the bookshelves and opened the little drawer, I was amused at what lay inside. A set of pipe tools for filling the bowl with tobacco and tamping it down and also a tortoiseshell (I love the colour) cigarette holder. The little lidded tobacco container is made of striking cork and I expected it to smell but there's no odour at all.
Sigh. We come from a different world don’t we? I remember starting work in a Health Department and there were so many smokers. I remember later seeing how the smokers had their breaks and caught up on all the gossip. I did smoke briefly but gave it up because I couldn’t stand the smell of smoke in my clothing. Thank goodness. Ah the memories…
Oh! And those fancy cigarettes! Just for show. So appealing! So much of the industry was made to lure you in, ensnare you. Our local pub still has an old poster out the front showing an elegant lady in a group of well clad gents, all laughing and smoking. So ‘classy’.
What a beautiful nostalgic piece, Prue. I remember smoking being glamourised too. In the sixties when I was growing up, when my parents threw a party (which was fairly frequently!) my job as a child was to mingle amongst the guests with a beautiful wooden box, which I had dutifully loaded up with Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes beforehand. It had a carved bird on the top and when I pressed a lever, the bird bent forward and picked up a cigarette in its beak! I loved that box but like you, at the time, never really thought about the dangers of smoking.
Both my parents died young 51 and 53 neither from smoking related illnesses, but both from cancer.
Thank you for sharing this beautifully written piece and for taking me back to my childhood. I often think about my parents’ parties with lots of dancing and fun - it was as if they knew they didn’t have long on this earth and lived their lives to the full.
It was such a social thing, wasn't it. People would arrive with gifts of flowers, chocolates or a pack of a dozen boxes of the best cigarettes! I have a sweet music box which features in my current WIP and it was in fact a cigarette box. Inlaid timber outside, a mirror inside and a ballerina dancing to Dance Ballerina Dance. Either side of her were the dividers for storing cigarettes.
My dad was a big smoker and drinker - and died in his 70's with dementia (caused by his bad habits). I now bear the legacy of having lived in my parents' house (and driving in his car) until my late teens - emphysemal changes in my lungs and a chronic cough..... thanks Dad! I still think of him when I smell cigarette smoke - which isn't very often in these more enlightened days.
Oh Leanne. I'm so sorry about the health issues. That generation had no idea when they were rearing children that smoking could impact us. Have to say I was glad to leave home and enter a 'clean' environment.
This is wonderful! What a great capture of the images of those days. My parents both smoked too, and (possibly unfairly) I blame my periodic bronchitis and one-time pneumonia on a childhood lived in smoke-filled rooms. It was only after my first born arrived that my parents had the drive to quit as I wouldn't let them in my house if they smoked. They got tired of the porch very quickly.
But I also remember those romantic images as you describe! The amazingly beautiful versions of ashtrays as sculpture and art. One family friend used to describe with awe the unspoken choreography as my father would notice my mother taking out a cigarette, and he would sidle over to her, flip out the lighter just as the tip of the cigarette touched her lips, and then move away, all the while my mother was chattering away, barely noticing the gesture. I'm so glad to have never felt the need or desire to smoke.
And congratulations on your short-listing of Red Threads!!!! I'm so delighted for you Prue!!!
Ah, the ciggies - what a culture it was. And no, I don't think you are being unfair about the health outcomes resulting from our parents. Cigarettes in those days were very strong and cars and houses not well-ventilated.
I LOVE the image of your Dad gliding over to your mother. It was almost balletic, wasn't it? I remember my mum soundlessly holding out two fingers and my father slipping a cigarette between the digits, not a word exchanged. Seriously! Just as well they both smoked. Imagine kissing a mouthful of ash!
Ah, and I love that image of the two fingers! Goodness, As a teenager, I would have blushed! Oh my, kissing smoke-filled mouths, yuck! Yet another reason I never started smoking! But what a culture. Amazing time. thanks for the memories.....
My Dad smoked through the war as they were issued cigarettes. He continued to smoke afterwards but only at dinner parties. I thought he looked elegant in his suit, cigarette in hand. My mom smoked to "lose the baby weight" until my younger brother told her she didn't smell nice. She quit then and there....out of the mouths of babes! My grandmother smoked until her 99th birthday although how she managed being blind with glaucoma, I don't know. It seems that after WW2, smoking was a social habit accompanied by a beer or a cocktail. Thankfully, we siblings and our children never picked it up.
Prue, you’ve taken me to so many places with this one! My best friend’s mom’s car, her kitchen, our cottage when my aunt was visiting, the aunt who hated the heat so smoked inside in front of a fan. I loved getting to know your parents, and although ciggies are deadly, they do speak to a time when people sat and took a moment for themselves. Something we can learn from, minus the nicotine! Thank you Prue, such a good read.
Both my parents smoked sadly and did all their lives, I never smoked didn't fancy it, and Jeff smoked a little but gave up when I was pregnant so the children never had to live in a smoky atmosphere unless of course we were visiting. Jeff's mum I never smoked, his dad was a miner and also smoked,he had emphysema and was quite unwell for the years I knew him . He'd have a puff or two of his Ventoilin inhaler and a few minutes later would light up. he was early 60's when he died. Heather never smoked and Alun smoked a little when he left home but soon stopped. But I do remember the adverts how glamorous smoking was .
Ours is a smoke free home, visistors if they want to smoke can sit in the porch which is pretty big and covered and just archways on 2 sides the other walls are solid so pretty sheltered.
I think all my aunts and uncles on mum's side bar one smoked and all died young mostly of heart related issues cause by smoking My auntie Margaret never smoked and still alive at 89 although very frail.
Wasn't making resturants and food places no smoking zones wonderful, it used to be awful trying to eat and l. ots of smoke etc. Different days now. I hate how people that vape seem to be a walking smoke factory.
It's all so awful. I remember once I'd married and had my own home, I'd go back to visit Dad and Mum and see the ashtrays with butts in them and say - 'Oh look, there's your lungs!' It made no difference... hard habit to break.
Yep worse in some way than cigarettes, we used to have to tell patients and relatives not to smoke them in the waiting room, and they'd argue its not smoking !!!! Grr
I've smoked, but have never been a smoker. It does nothing for me, and maybe that's because I so disliked that, like yours, both my parents smoked. So many ashtrays, and the residue within just nasty!! Though I recall those car lighters being a delightful (heh - punny) temptation in my youth. I gave it all very little thought as a child, but by the time I was a teenager, I was begging them to stop. My dad was first to let it go, surprising as he was the heavier user. On a dare with a buddy, he stopped cold turkey. Says something about his willpower. Emphysema (COPD) still came around to bite him in the bum, though he lived to be 84 and also had other maladies by then. Mom held fast to her habit a bit longer. She only smoked a cigarette or two a day, both in the morning, and she insisted they "kept her regular." I finally convinced her that the black coffee would be sufficient and was proven correct. 🤣 I don't remember their ages nor my own when the house was finally cleared of that haze, but what a relief!
You look so much like your mom, and I love that she defied the odds. Plucky, that one. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.
Do you know, I've never actually smoked at all? That is ciggie between lips and drawing back. Never wanted to, it's like a mental condition - seriously. Maybe a syndrome of some sort or other.
'A generation of smokers' appears to be the truth judging from the comments of friends here on this post. Therefore I guess we were passive smokers in a fairly confined situation.
I'm sure some organisation will one day submit research on what its done to the health of baby boomers.
I just hope that getting out of it as a teneeager and living a 'fresh air' life might have counterbalanced everything.
I suspect that Mum's enviable figure was entirely due to her smoking. And her physicians all loved her, she had this way with them that charmed them. The eye specialist called her his little Queen Bee, the way people loved her and gravitated to her company in his waiting room - staff and patients alike. It was endearing. He actually rang me on her passing to convey his kind thoughts.
Dad and Mum were stoic, took pain on the chin and would then truck on. Their generation for sure, with wars, the Depression and so forth. I want to be like that when I grow up...
My husband is a smoker - and I hate it. He smokes outside and not around me, and I think he wants to give up, but ... there's no point in me nagging about it, I suppose. My grandmother, Mavis, gave up at 90 when she found out it could kill her - and 4 years later it did, but she was still dancing in stilettos a couple of months before it did. I do, however, like the vintage detritus that goes with it - the ashtrays, the cigarette cases etc.
Oh, Prue, such a beautiful post about a difficult subject. I love that you scattered that cigarette.
I was thinking just today how unusual it is to see smoking on screen these days, when I caught a glimpse of an online clip of a mid-90s British cop drama.
When I was a student (1993 to 1997) it seemed as if smoked in pubs, bars, nightclubs, and RESTAURANTS, and before that, our non-smoking household had a heavy cut-glass ashtray which would be brought out whenever we had visitors. I used to love the smell of our neighbour's cigarettes - she smoked 60 a day - and always made a point of sitting next to her when she was smoking; something which horrifies me now, more than forty years on.
I love that in modern cars there's no longer a cigarette lighter - it's *just* an electrical socket!
I did love the smell - but I was young and foolish! And didn’t grow up in a house full of smoke, so I guess it was a novelty. For the record I also love the smell of diesel, because it reminds me of canal holidays! I think I’m a bit strange…
Oh, what a nostalgic piece for me! I loved to smoke! And it looked elegant, sophisticated; sometimes serious and preoccupied, when doing nothing. Almost all of our Philological Faculty's students of 1960s smoked, and our dean hated our habit. Passing us (mostly, girls) in our place on the marble staircase, we heard his: Smoke as the shoemakers... But, on the serious note: such a lovely, forgiven tribute to your parents.
This was full of insights! I too remember the days when almost every adult smoked…except my dad. My mother quit when I was pregnant with my first child—until I read this, I never realized how very difficult that must have been for her. She was going through a very stressful time in her life.
Thanks Prue - I remember the "daze (days)" as well - mine, his, some family members. Eel skin pouches from Hawaii to hold our packages were our "status symbols" plus the little mini ashtray for travelling. So very grateful to have been able to step away from it. And, of course, coming to that place of realizing exactly how terrible I smelled (actually all of us smelled) and being embarrassed and ashamed. I also used Giorgio...LOL.
Oh the memories. My mum was a smoker, I remember when I was about 4 she used to lay on the spare bed in my room while I went to sleep. It would be dark but I could see the glow of her ciggie and if I moved my head really fast I could see a continuous red line from her smoke. Pretty sure I would have gone to sleep much quicker if she wasn’t smoking.
Kate, my memories of Mum and Dad don't seem to include the smell of smoke. And certainly never with Dad. But with Mum as she aged, I have to say it was pretty strong. She would use a LOT of Giorgio perfume!
Ah yes, parents who smoke! My dad had a very fancy Meersham pipe with a sculpted man's head as the pipe's bowl. He explained that, in time, the colour would change to a warm, golden as he smoked away. (Much like his lungs, I think now!) But he was not a super heavy smoker and eventually quit. I myself leaned towards those slim, minty "ciggies" (haven't heard THAT in a while!) but only as a teen and only when out drinking. I was never hooked. Love your descriptors here Prue, esp that lighter in the car and the ashtrays, so excellent.
The pipe is a story on its own, Sue. Imagine the carving!
When I pulled Dad's pipe cabinet down from the top of the bookshelves and opened the little drawer, I was amused at what lay inside. A set of pipe tools for filling the bowl with tobacco and tamping it down and also a tortoiseshell (I love the colour) cigarette holder. The little lidded tobacco container is made of striking cork and I expected it to smell but there's no odour at all.
Sigh. We come from a different world don’t we? I remember starting work in a Health Department and there were so many smokers. I remember later seeing how the smokers had their breaks and caught up on all the gossip. I did smoke briefly but gave it up because I couldn’t stand the smell of smoke in my clothing. Thank goodness. Ah the memories…
Oh! And those fancy cigarettes! Just for show. So appealing! So much of the industry was made to lure you in, ensnare you. Our local pub still has an old poster out the front showing an elegant lady in a group of well clad gents, all laughing and smoking. So ‘classy’.
The Sobranie boxes for women were gorgeous. Like looking at a box of Derwent pencils. Cancer sticks!
I worked for the ABC, Beth -same thing. Studio and O/B crews were all smokers. But then science kicked in. Thank God!!!!
What a beautiful nostalgic piece, Prue. I remember smoking being glamourised too. In the sixties when I was growing up, when my parents threw a party (which was fairly frequently!) my job as a child was to mingle amongst the guests with a beautiful wooden box, which I had dutifully loaded up with Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes beforehand. It had a carved bird on the top and when I pressed a lever, the bird bent forward and picked up a cigarette in its beak! I loved that box but like you, at the time, never really thought about the dangers of smoking.
Both my parents died young 51 and 53 neither from smoking related illnesses, but both from cancer.
Thank you for sharing this beautifully written piece and for taking me back to my childhood. I often think about my parents’ parties with lots of dancing and fun - it was as if they knew they didn’t have long on this earth and lived their lives to the full.
It was such a social thing, wasn't it. People would arrive with gifts of flowers, chocolates or a pack of a dozen boxes of the best cigarettes! I have a sweet music box which features in my current WIP and it was in fact a cigarette box. Inlaid timber outside, a mirror inside and a ballerina dancing to Dance Ballerina Dance. Either side of her were the dividers for storing cigarettes.
TBH, I'm phobic about smoking now. Hate it!
My dad was a big smoker and drinker - and died in his 70's with dementia (caused by his bad habits). I now bear the legacy of having lived in my parents' house (and driving in his car) until my late teens - emphysemal changes in my lungs and a chronic cough..... thanks Dad! I still think of him when I smell cigarette smoke - which isn't very often in these more enlightened days.
Oh Leanne. I'm so sorry about the health issues. That generation had no idea when they were rearing children that smoking could impact us. Have to say I was glad to leave home and enter a 'clean' environment.
Yes, me too - we never gave it a moment's thought back then, but there's definitely long term fallout from it.
Let's hope it goes no further and with fresh air and a good life, you can beat any issues!
This is wonderful! What a great capture of the images of those days. My parents both smoked too, and (possibly unfairly) I blame my periodic bronchitis and one-time pneumonia on a childhood lived in smoke-filled rooms. It was only after my first born arrived that my parents had the drive to quit as I wouldn't let them in my house if they smoked. They got tired of the porch very quickly.
But I also remember those romantic images as you describe! The amazingly beautiful versions of ashtrays as sculpture and art. One family friend used to describe with awe the unspoken choreography as my father would notice my mother taking out a cigarette, and he would sidle over to her, flip out the lighter just as the tip of the cigarette touched her lips, and then move away, all the while my mother was chattering away, barely noticing the gesture. I'm so glad to have never felt the need or desire to smoke.
And congratulations on your short-listing of Red Threads!!!! I'm so delighted for you Prue!!!
Thanks, Sabrina. I'm surprised and chuffed!
Ah, the ciggies - what a culture it was. And no, I don't think you are being unfair about the health outcomes resulting from our parents. Cigarettes in those days were very strong and cars and houses not well-ventilated.
I LOVE the image of your Dad gliding over to your mother. It was almost balletic, wasn't it? I remember my mum soundlessly holding out two fingers and my father slipping a cigarette between the digits, not a word exchanged. Seriously! Just as well they both smoked. Imagine kissing a mouthful of ash!
Ah, and I love that image of the two fingers! Goodness, As a teenager, I would have blushed! Oh my, kissing smoke-filled mouths, yuck! Yet another reason I never started smoking! But what a culture. Amazing time. thanks for the memories.....
My Dad smoked through the war as they were issued cigarettes. He continued to smoke afterwards but only at dinner parties. I thought he looked elegant in his suit, cigarette in hand. My mom smoked to "lose the baby weight" until my younger brother told her she didn't smell nice. She quit then and there....out of the mouths of babes! My grandmother smoked until her 99th birthday although how she managed being blind with glaucoma, I don't know. It seems that after WW2, smoking was a social habit accompanied by a beer or a cocktail. Thankfully, we siblings and our children never picked it up.
Same with our family, Susan. None of the offspring could bear it. The same occurred in my husband's family.
TBH, if I smell someone smoking now, I am nauseous.
Prue, you’ve taken me to so many places with this one! My best friend’s mom’s car, her kitchen, our cottage when my aunt was visiting, the aunt who hated the heat so smoked inside in front of a fan. I loved getting to know your parents, and although ciggies are deadly, they do speak to a time when people sat and took a moment for themselves. Something we can learn from, minus the nicotine! Thank you Prue, such a good read.
Thanks Lindsay. It was really a statement of the times, wasn't it?
What do we do now to take a moment for ourselves? I tend to just stare into space...
Both my parents smoked sadly and did all their lives, I never smoked didn't fancy it, and Jeff smoked a little but gave up when I was pregnant so the children never had to live in a smoky atmosphere unless of course we were visiting. Jeff's mum I never smoked, his dad was a miner and also smoked,he had emphysema and was quite unwell for the years I knew him . He'd have a puff or two of his Ventoilin inhaler and a few minutes later would light up. he was early 60's when he died. Heather never smoked and Alun smoked a little when he left home but soon stopped. But I do remember the adverts how glamorous smoking was .
Ours is a smoke free home, visistors if they want to smoke can sit in the porch which is pretty big and covered and just archways on 2 sides the other walls are solid so pretty sheltered.
I think all my aunts and uncles on mum's side bar one smoked and all died young mostly of heart related issues cause by smoking My auntie Margaret never smoked and still alive at 89 although very frail.
Wasn't making resturants and food places no smoking zones wonderful, it used to be awful trying to eat and l. ots of smoke etc. Different days now. I hate how people that vape seem to be a walking smoke factory.
Ah yes. Vapes...
I just KNOW my mother would have had a go.
It's all so awful. I remember once I'd married and had my own home, I'd go back to visit Dad and Mum and see the ashtrays with butts in them and say - 'Oh look, there's your lungs!' It made no difference... hard habit to break.
Yep worse in some way than cigarettes, we used to have to tell patients and relatives not to smoke them in the waiting room, and they'd argue its not smoking !!!! Grr
I've smoked, but have never been a smoker. It does nothing for me, and maybe that's because I so disliked that, like yours, both my parents smoked. So many ashtrays, and the residue within just nasty!! Though I recall those car lighters being a delightful (heh - punny) temptation in my youth. I gave it all very little thought as a child, but by the time I was a teenager, I was begging them to stop. My dad was first to let it go, surprising as he was the heavier user. On a dare with a buddy, he stopped cold turkey. Says something about his willpower. Emphysema (COPD) still came around to bite him in the bum, though he lived to be 84 and also had other maladies by then. Mom held fast to her habit a bit longer. She only smoked a cigarette or two a day, both in the morning, and she insisted they "kept her regular." I finally convinced her that the black coffee would be sufficient and was proven correct. 🤣 I don't remember their ages nor my own when the house was finally cleared of that haze, but what a relief!
You look so much like your mom, and I love that she defied the odds. Plucky, that one. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.
Do you know, I've never actually smoked at all? That is ciggie between lips and drawing back. Never wanted to, it's like a mental condition - seriously. Maybe a syndrome of some sort or other.
'A generation of smokers' appears to be the truth judging from the comments of friends here on this post. Therefore I guess we were passive smokers in a fairly confined situation.
I'm sure some organisation will one day submit research on what its done to the health of baby boomers.
I just hope that getting out of it as a teneeager and living a 'fresh air' life might have counterbalanced everything.
I suspect that Mum's enviable figure was entirely due to her smoking. And her physicians all loved her, she had this way with them that charmed them. The eye specialist called her his little Queen Bee, the way people loved her and gravitated to her company in his waiting room - staff and patients alike. It was endearing. He actually rang me on her passing to convey his kind thoughts.
Dad and Mum were stoic, took pain on the chin and would then truck on. Their generation for sure, with wars, the Depression and so forth. I want to be like that when I grow up...
Thank you for reading, Elizabeth. XXXX
My husband is a smoker - and I hate it. He smokes outside and not around me, and I think he wants to give up, but ... there's no point in me nagging about it, I suppose. My grandmother, Mavis, gave up at 90 when she found out it could kill her - and 4 years later it did, but she was still dancing in stilettos a couple of months before it did. I do, however, like the vintage detritus that goes with it - the ashtrays, the cigarette cases etc.
The vintage props were such masterpieces of design, weren't they?
mavis sounds amazing, TBH and I guess, like my mum living to almost 90, there are many such escape artists...
Oh, Prue, such a beautiful post about a difficult subject. I love that you scattered that cigarette.
I was thinking just today how unusual it is to see smoking on screen these days, when I caught a glimpse of an online clip of a mid-90s British cop drama.
When I was a student (1993 to 1997) it seemed as if smoked in pubs, bars, nightclubs, and RESTAURANTS, and before that, our non-smoking household had a heavy cut-glass ashtray which would be brought out whenever we had visitors. I used to love the smell of our neighbour's cigarettes - she smoked 60 a day - and always made a point of sitting next to her when she was smoking; something which horrifies me now, more than forty years on.
I love that in modern cars there's no longer a cigarette lighter - it's *just* an electrical socket!
You loved the smell... you LOVED the smell! Lordy, lordy!
As time passed, my mother was aghast at the way society turned its back on smokers but I do think she enjoyed being a rebel.
Yes, that electrical socket is the bees' knees, I can plug my phone in and listen to audiobooks on all the long journeys.
I did love the smell - but I was young and foolish! And didn’t grow up in a house full of smoke, so I guess it was a novelty. For the record I also love the smell of diesel, because it reminds me of canal holidays! I think I’m a bit strange…
Oh, what a nostalgic piece for me! I loved to smoke! And it looked elegant, sophisticated; sometimes serious and preoccupied, when doing nothing. Almost all of our Philological Faculty's students of 1960s smoked, and our dean hated our habit. Passing us (mostly, girls) in our place on the marble staircase, we heard his: Smoke as the shoemakers... But, on the serious note: such a lovely, forgiven tribute to your parents.
Thank you, Larisa.
If I end up with lung disease, I may not be so forgiving of my parents but I've got to 72+ thus far, so here's hoping.
This was full of insights! I too remember the days when almost every adult smoked…except my dad. My mother quit when I was pregnant with my first child—until I read this, I never realized how very difficult that must have been for her. She was going through a very stressful time in her life.
I’m glad for your mum’s long life!
Thank you, Susan.
Thanks Prue - I remember the "daze (days)" as well - mine, his, some family members. Eel skin pouches from Hawaii to hold our packages were our "status symbols" plus the little mini ashtray for travelling. So very grateful to have been able to step away from it. And, of course, coming to that place of realizing exactly how terrible I smelled (actually all of us smelled) and being embarrassed and ashamed. I also used Giorgio...LOL.