Cultureshock

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Video transcript

Smoking!  The word spreads a look of dread and disgust in the faces of most people nowadays but, there was a time when the vast majority of people smoked, in fact some doctors actively encouraged it to ease all sorts of chest problems.

Then there were the social  aspects, adverts and such "you're never alone with a Strand" and sophisticated society ladies and film stars like Marlene Dietrich  elegantly puffing away on cigarettes encased in long holders. Smoking was as normal as breathing.

So my father like many others of his generation started smoking as a right of passage when he left school and entered the grown-up world of work and the "club” on a weekend.

Well, national service was still compulsory but my dad decided instead of doing his two years to join up proper. Not the army for him but the RAF mainly for two reasons; he could keep his moustache and secondly, and most important, that my mum (his fiancée) preferred him in the cool blue rather than the khaki green.

Well, this was when the transition from bike riding cigarette smoker to pipe smoking RAF chap, complete with handle bar moustache took place and my dad became the ardent pipe smoker he was until the day he died.

From that moment on one of his beloved collection of pipes was always fixed permanently fixed to his mouth, lit or not it would always be there almost like an extension of his face.

Now my mum and various other members of my family over the years had bought him lighters in one shape or another but these were never used , instead staying without seeing the light of day in the sideboard drawer. The only thing that he would use to light his much loved pipes were Swan Vestas or to be exact Swan's as he called them.

Now there was no problem of disposing of the dead matches when he was working because as a building contractor and spent most of his time outside and when he free from the daily grind of work he could be found walking round the beautiful countryside of Beamish where we were fortunate enough to live. However, the problems began to arise when he was in the house.

Now you would suppose that with having an open wood burning fire and an Aga  cooker that he'd throw them in there but no my dad had other ideas. Every evening the ritual would start; the pipe was lit and a match was put on the occasional table that he had beside his wing leather chair, the pipe went out and a matcg was lit again with another match which was put on the table and so on and so on

Now these matches were not placed willy nilly no they were built into a nice little pyramid cube just the type of thing that a joiner would do. I can still remember my mum watching this small creation growing out of the corner of her eye with equally growing frustration, and hear the hurrumps of annoyance as it did so .You see no one was allowed to touch this little creation until my dad went to bed and then no one but him.

Mum would make a cup of tea and give it to  my dad, putting it on the table and her fingers would linger next to the matches itching to dispose of them in the fire, but my dad would just look at her out of the corner of his eye and give a giggle like a naughty school boy and she'd leave them. Then when it was time for bed the telly would be switched off and then little match stick pyramid would be thrown in the fire ready to be recreated the next day.

Now in the 21st century smoking has come full circle, only in the opposite direction and only the hardened few like my son and I still smoke. Sometimes, however, looking at my son who is the mirror image of his Grandad I wonder if there will ever be the transition in him and the cigarettes will be replaced by a handle bar moustache, a pipe and a box of Swans.