These cigarette ads from yesteryear are shocking. Perhaps one day our descendants will be equally shocked when they look at present day ads for betting and gambling organisations. I hope so.
Imagine sending your loved ones packs of cigarettes for Christmas! That's like sending them time bombs or vials of deadly viruses. But of course back then they didn't know better did they?
Actually, "they" - the tobacco companies did know better - but they suppressed the health information as they wanted to keep the money rolling in. Often, through different forms of bribery, they were secretly in league with leading politicians.
I confess that I smoked cigarettes from 1974 to 1988 - fourteen years and for most of those years it was twenty a day. Looking back, I can hardly believe how stupid I was to take up that disgusting habit. However, I haven't smoked a single cigarette in the last thirty six years and that makes me feel rather better about myself.
This is how I managed to give up. It was the summer of 1988 and our second baby was on her way. I had failed to give up in 1984 - the year that our Ian was born but this time I was utterly determined.
I took my newly purchased golden pack of "Benson and Hedges" out to our dustbin and I broke up all the cigarettes inside - crushing them to bits then I ripped up the golden box and tossed that in the bin too. I rubbed my hands and all the tobacco was gone. Then I went inside and washed my hands in the kitchen sink.
In that instant I had become a non-smoker once again. I was not playing around, not pretending, not playing mind games with myself. It was over and as I say, I have not had a puff on a cigarette since. In fact, I have grown to be revolted by the foul stench of cigarette smoke. Horrible!
I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. As a kid I found the smell disgusting and wanted no part of it, so I never even tried it.
ReplyDeleteYou are very lucky that you never succumbed Bob.
DeleteYou have to be kidding. I smoked B&H from the time I was 14 years old until 1986. (See what I did there?) I did quit during my pregnancies, and when I was nursing a babe, I would light Farhad's for him and that was it. But the minute those babes were off the breast?.....a pack a day!! I still miss it when I have my glass of red some evenings but, to be honest, I could not $ afford $ that terrible habit these days!!
ReplyDeleteSo you smoked for just eight years?
DeleteThe only one of those ads that surprises me is the pregnant lady one. I don't remember seeing one like that here. You're right about politicians and cigarette companies being in cahoots.
ReplyDeleteFollowing this comment I researched that shocking ad and discovered it was in fact a fake so I removed it. Thanks Deb!
DeleteGiving up smoking was the hardest thing I ever did.
ReplyDeleteBut you did it! Years later, I say well done Red!
DeleteGood for you Mr. Pudding. I wish my husband would quit smoking, a pack a day for the last 45 years.
ReplyDeleteWhat a waste of money! Come on Big Guy - give 'em up man! Or you won't be there for Jack when he needs you! To put it bluntly - you will be gone!
DeleteMy dad gave up smoking just like you except he smoked his last packet and declared he'd given up. That must be 50 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI've never smoked but I'm a bit too fond of a nice brandy.......
Expensive tastes Christina!
DeleteI gag when fellow shoppers/smokers get to close to me in the shops.
ReplyDeleteThe stink hangs about them like a smelly fart and they just don't realise it.
DeleteI have never smoked, but I remember buying cartons of cigarettes for my parents at the local shops, remember too, Mum "borrowing" a few smokes from hubby when she visited and hubby sometimes sneaking some of hers if she wasn't looking because by then they were getting expensive, $5 a pack by then. Now a cheap brand is as much as $20 a pack and the best brands about $50! I dearly wish my sons would quit and the twins mum too.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange how nicotine addiction grabs people so that they cannot see sense and act accordingly.
DeleteI have never even tried to smoke, although of course in my teens I was seen as a bit eccentric for refusing anything that my contemporaries tried out (and try out they did, with some disastrous results). My Dad smoked heavily, and I never liked it. My first husband smoked, but gave up. Steve smoked (but it wasn't his killer - according to our GP, his lung was "clean").
ReplyDeleteThose ads would be laughable if it weren't so serious. But then, look at today's ads for cars (that kill people AND are bad for the environment) or for alcoholic drinks... it's still all about money, and that won't change, I'm afraid.
It must be true love when a non-smoker is prepared to kiss a smoker.
DeletePS: Well done you for giving up and never going back!
ReplyDeleteDanke!
DeleteI gave up smoking when I was 28. I am 61 next month. I still miss them and chatting to people when they asked me for a light or a spare cigarette. They also calmed me down.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first went in busy Irish pubs it was like entering a fog. Kudos goes to the Irish government for leading the way on smoking bans.
DeleteA posh boy, Benson and Hedges, 'When only the best will do'. You did smoke for quite a while but I think thy body would have healed itself since.
ReplyDeleteNot entirely Andrew. Because of my high blood pressure, two doctors have shown alarming interest in my past history of smoking.
DeleteI smoked Consulate for a few years in my early 20s. Gave up every time I had a cold/cough, but my flat mate smoked and I got dragged ( see what I did there?) back in to it until I met my husband to be and gave up for good.
ReplyDeleteI once had a bitter argument ( I was a bit drunk!) with an acquaintance who worked for a tobacco company. He would not have it that smoking was bad/unhealthy etc. A few years later he died of throat cancer, presumably because of smoking!
"Consulate" - as cool as a mountain stream.
DeleteVery sorry to hear about your old acquaintance. Back in the fifties/sixties all smokers were conned by the tobacco industry. They just wanted the money.
I have always found the stench of cigarettes revolting and have never been tempted to suck that noxious chemical infused smoke down into my lungs. Both my parents were smokers and our house was always full of it. I am surprised I don't have lung damage from passive smoking!
ReplyDeleteThe smoke got everywhere - clothes, hair, curtains, carpets, soft furnishings. Do you think your father would have lived longer if he hadn't smoked?
DeleteDefinitely. He died from lung cancer.
DeleteMy parents smoked and I hate the smell, so therefore I have never smoked.
ReplyDeleteThank heavens you did not cross the line.
DeleteYou could smoke for free in Leeds in 1970 - from other people. It was in offices where I worked, in shops, in cinemas, in pubs, on the buses, in the streets, in the shared houses where I lived. Then there were traffic fumes as well, and pollution in many of the factories I visited. They have ascribed my ill health to passive smoking.
ReplyDeleteThat is so tragically cruel when you were not a smoker yourself.
DeleteAs a child listening to the radio, one of the common records was Bob Newhart's take on Rayleigh bringing back tobacco from the US colonies. His merciless send-up of smoking was enough to put me off smoking for life!!
ReplyDeleteI would like to have heard that. I will search for it with the aid of that bloody know-all - Google.
DeleteAs a teenager, I once had one puff of a friend's cigarette - just to try. It was absolutely revolting and I'm happy to say that I have never even tried one since. Sadly my late husband smoked like the proverbial chimney - the room would be so thick with smoke that I could hardly see the other side! When we first married I suffered from several very bad throat infections, due to passive smoking. At times he would get through two packets a day. Over the years I tried to get him to stop smoking and he'd try for a week or two, then revert back. Not surprisingly he died from lung cancer. My parents never smoked, so I was used to a fresh home atmosphere. I always hated, and still do, the smell of stale tobacco, no matter where it is.
ReplyDeleteWithout smoking your husband could have had more years with you. When did he die and how old was he Carol?
DeleteI started smoking at university (it was quite normal then and we even had a vending machine in the hall of residence) and continued into my time in Germany where there were cigarette vending machines on practically every street corner. I suppose I never smoked more than about ten a day and mostly in the evenings but then gave it up easily as I wanted to become pregnant. Unfortunately Greg continued to smoked right up until the week before he died - the last week being when he was in intensive care. He kept saying he wanted to give up and would do so when we had children, but he just couldn't manage it. He was truly addicted as he was to alcohol in the end. Like you, I cannot stand the smell of smoke nowadays , but back then we didn't realise the dangers.
ReplyDeleteIn the fifties and sixties, heartthrob film stars puffed away on screen as if the smelly habit was somehow stylish.
DeleteIn the 1930'a my grandmother was advised by her doctor to take up smoking to "strengthen her lungs." She quit in the 1960's. My father quit in the early 1950's, lung cancer was a listed cause of death 50 years later.
ReplyDeleteImagine that! Being encouraged by doctors to smoke! Crazy.
DeleteMy dad smoked a couple of packs a day. I'm not even sure how many, but it seemed like he always had a cigarette. And of course it caught up with him in the end. I flirted with smoking in college but I couldn't bring myself to inhale smoke so it was a short-lived flirtation!
ReplyDeleteThose cigarettes must have shortened your father's life. How old was he when he died?
DeleteGood for you for being able to give it up cold turkey. I was fortunate. I am a generation younger and so the dangers were more prevalent and I never smoked a single one. I also came from parents who never smoked either so I had that as an advantage too. For me, the biggest factor I'm thankful for is not so much my health but how much money I have saved by not smoking. I don't understand how people can financially afford to smoke these days. The price of cigarettes over here blows my mind.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a child, smoking cigarettes was generally accepted as part of life.
DeleteBoth of my parents smoked and died from cancer when I was a child. Stupid me still took up the nasty habit at 16 and smoked for a decade. I quit cold turkey and have been free of it for four decades.
ReplyDeleteMy mother smoked from the age of fourteen to the age of 82. Only her last four years were smoke-free. If you have the determination to quit cold turkey then you will. Congratulations Kelly - on four decades of being smoke-free!
DeleteWell done. Your lungs and your children thank you.
ReplyDeleteGiving up cigs was one of the proudest achievements of my life.
DeleteI quit in 1992, after 30+ years with the evil weed. I've never looked back so I've now surpassed the adult years I smoked like a chimney to the years that I haven't.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of this famous moment (account snaffled from an article in the New Yorker):
ReplyDelete"A chain smoker and a veteran of Czech jails, Havel had suffered from pneumonias, a perforated bowel, and various other illnesses. “He’s nearly killed himself in the job,” Havel’s friend the writer Timothy Garton Ash told me. “He’s been close to death several times.” The closest call came in late 1996. Havel’s doctor found a spot on his lungs and treated him for pneumonia. Havel continued suffering fevers and double vision. Finally, doctors determined that he had cancer and removed half his right lung. (Just before going into the operating room, Havel was shown on television smoking with his Minister of Health.)"
It seems he did give up after that.