A SHORT HISTORY 01 - TOBACCO

It started with a girl at a party. Offering me one, she looked at me with big Pocahontas eyes. How could I refuse?
It continued with a Saturday job at a newsagents and tobacconists. Bert, the owner, and, as time went on, firm friend, was a devout communist. Weekly, he’d dip into his pocket in response to the appeals on the front page of the Morning Star, seeking donations for its own survival. When, therefore, I filched through the brands of available fagware, he had little response to my defence that it was redistributing wealth.
At 17, it was Sobranies. I looked a real prick, posing with pink ones, and coughing my way through the black russians.
Not much later it was Gitanes unfiltered, inspired by my poet friend who was on the Chatterton trail, living in a damp cellar with a nutritional intake that consisted only of the evil French smokes, and unbelievably strong coffee. Pursuing the Gitanes lifestyle we went together to Paris, sharing a small apartment in the 8th Arrondissement, dreaming (at least on his part) of being Verlaine and Rimbaud. We got ourselves arrested for having a Gitanes and coffee picnic at the top of the then unfinished La Defense buildings. We broke easily into the building site, ascended for ages, then sat dangerously, with our legs dangling over the skyscraper edge to enjoy the unparalleled views of the City, wreathed in mists of tabac brun .
At university I went through an Old Tory phase. I squandered a great deal of money on brogues, tweed jackets and corduroy trousers. To complete the picture I bought a pipe. At the time, to me and my fellow members of the Idiotic Old Tory set, this seemed like a good idea. At the tobacconists, when asked with which brand I would like to stuff my briar, I remembered that my Dad had smoked Erinmore Mix. Equipped with this I set off to an enjoy an evening of fine smoking. I’d never had my Dad down as a hard man. But two bowls of Erinmore was more than enough to convince me he had hidden depths, as my student bedroom span round at alarming speed, and on about the thirtieth revolution I managed to dive onto my bed and stay there, ill, for about three days. Thus ended a chapter of the pipe dream.