The Lonely Smoker

Smoking used to be a happy social activity. After a lengthy Sunday lunch my grandfather would go to his humidor and bring out two fat cigars to share with my father. Both pleasurably went through the rituals of rolling the cigar between thumb and finger, sniffing it, removing the band, cutting the smoking end and carefully lighting it with a Swan Vestas match. After dinner conversation was accompanied by the rich and not unpleasant aroma of cigar smoke.

Today I saw a lone woman dragging a few long puffs on a cigarette outside a hair salon. She was obviously in the middle of her hair treatment but needed a break, I emphasize the loneliness because it is common enough now to witness a small knot of smokers outside pubs, restaurants, courts, shops, libraries, fitness centres, sharing their comradely sense of exclusion from approved society. The lone smoker is perhaps rare but, who knows, may become more common.

As I was growing up, as I indicated above, smoking was an everyday part of life. Even school staff rooms exuded smoke during breaks. Smokers were mostly male, but in men it was an almost universal habit. Some women smoked but it was generally considered to be a masculine activity. Nobody pretended that it was good for you. Men joked about smoking coffin nails and were fatalistic about future health problems or shortened life expectancy. If it was going to be a short life the you might as well enjoy it.

Smoking was a social pleasure rather than a private vice. How times have changed!