Sometimes it feels like all the things we loved in the 20th century have turned out to be bad for us. Motor cars, aeroplanes, ready meals and, of course, cigarettes. 

I’m old enough to have been sent to the shop as a kid to buy my dad's Embassy Regal. I grew up in homes that would be filled with cigarette smoke, holding hands yellowed by cigarette stains. During the first 10 years we were together my late wife smoked assiduously. Love in those years tasted of nicotine.

All these memories swirled around me as I listened to Up in Smoke on Radio 4 last Saturday night. The latest episode in the Archive on 4 series, this was a sort of love letter to a dying (and deadly) habit from producer and former smoker Alan Hall. 

The result had a suitably smouldering flavour of nostalgia for an old, and, as we now know, toxic love. As such, it doubled as both a history of our relationship with cigarettes (which stretches back in Europe to the 16th century) and a kind of lament for a time when those little white tubes of tobacco had a glamour to them, bolstered by advertising and the allure of movie stars lighting up on the big screen.

Cigarettes, Oscar Wilde, once said were “a perfect pleasure”. They were also, Hall pointed out, a perfect consumer product. By the end of the First World War half of the young men in Britain were smokers. Women were soon joining in. Cigarettes were viewed as a symbol of modernity, explained Rosemary Elliott, the author of the book Women and Smoking Since 1890.

During an Easter parade in 1929, a group of young women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York under a banner exclaiming “Torches of Freedom” whilst smoking cigarettes. 

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Actually, that march was masterminded by the tobacco industry attempting to expand its market. Such efforts clearly worked. By the middle of the century not only were four out of five men smoking, so were two out of five women. The Second World War, it seems, was a huge catalyst for women taking to tobacco.

As time passed the glamour of the cigarette went up in smoke, however. But not without strenuous efforts by the tobacco industry to keep us smoking. Hall’s programme was clear on how cigarette manufacturers attempted to game society. It also examined the collusion between tobacco and big oil. The plastic filters fitted in cigarettes were a chance for the oil industry to find a new market rather than a serious safety measure. 

But even though I’ve never been a smoker, part of me found myself buying into the idea of the cigarette as a cheap luxury which was definitely curling around this hour-long documentary like smoke. The author Stuart Evers noted near the beginning that having a cigarette could be an excuse for a meditative moment. A short time out of life. The problem is the time it might take out of your life.

When he was diagnosed with lung cancer I was told my father came out of the doctor’s, pulled out a cigarette and said “I guess these are to blame.” I don’t know if he lit up anyway, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

(Image: Ally was on Radio 2)

Over on Radio 2 a certain Ally McCoist was Vernon Kay’s guest on Tracks of My Years all this week. Cue mentions of the Blue Lagoon chippy in Glasgow, the Maxwellton Primary in East Kilbride and numerous references to the late lamented Glasgow Apollo and, of course, the late Walter Smith.

“I took Walter to see AC/DC,” McCoist admitted on Friday. “He was never an AC/DC man. They played Hampden, Vernon. We went for a wee bite to eat, a pasta, and a wee glass of red before it. I’ll never forget it. 

“He’s like, ‘OK, I’ll come and see AC/DC.’ Within 10 minutes he was playing air guitar, man. It was brilliant.”

There’s a question for Off the Ball on Radio Scotland. Which Scottish Premiership manager today is actually a secret rocker? Not Brendan Rodgers. He has said he likes easy listening. But do we know if Jimmy Thelin listens to ABBA or The Hives?

 

Listen Out For: Desert Island Discs, Radio 4, Friday, November 15, 9am

And talking about football … I'm not in the habit of recommending repeats, but this 2020 interview with former Arsenal and England footballer Ian Wright is pretty remarkable and very moving. Hope you’re keeping well, Lauren Laverne.