Top Picture: A Player Please sign often seen on the pavement outside tobacconists back in the days when most of the population smoked. Very non pc now!
Bottom Picture: du Maurier the cigarette of the moment.
Time for a Fag.
I just got to thinking the other day about the reduction in number of smokers nationally (I myself have not smoked for over 35 years) and the loss in revenue that the tax and duty man must be feeling, I suppose we all now make up the shortfall some in some other way! But moving on from the subject of money there are now a whole range of products and services that we saw around as children that have now become rare or have almost completely disappeared.
To start with take a major manufacturing firm like Ronson who must have sold millions and millions of cigarette and table lighters in its time, their business must have fallen off almost completely. But think about it, it was not just the lighters that they produced but also lighter flints, replacement lighter wheels and wicks, not forgetting lighter fuel and later on lighter gas. (I bet you all remember your mother getting bicycle or other greasy marks off your clothes with one of thos plastic amber lighter fuel pods?) Ronson were not the only lighter producing company though, I seem to remember there was Colbi from France who also produced lighters as did the American company Zippo (Zippo lighters became a cult accessory at one time). An indication of the reduction in smoking is the fact that nowadays cars are no longer fitted with cigar or cigarette lighters but accessory power points for your satnav etc.
Starting with cigarettes especially the hand-rolling sort, how often do you see a Rizla cigarette-rolling machine with its boxes of filter tips around today. I know my grandmother, for a time in the late 1950’s, used to roll her own using one of these machines, I sometimes tried to do it for her but was useless. Hand rolling has not completely died out and Rizlas red and green papers can still be bought but how about the black liquorish ones, are they still about?
Other things that have long disappeared, or at least have gone into a deep retreat are leather and plastic tobacco pouches and wooden, china or Bakelite tobacco jars, wooden spills for the fire, pipe cleaners and pipe bowl reamers, metal cigarette cases and ivory cigarette holders, advertising book matches and fancy match box covers, tins of snuff and plain and fancy ashtrays. The last one must really have hit the retailer at the popular tourist resorts really hard, as taking granddad home an ashtray from your holiday was one of the accepted things.
Mouth hygiene must also have been hit. Can you still buy Eucryl Smokers Toothpaste and tooth brushes I wonder? The major suppliers of menthol must also have felt the pinch as no longer can cigarettes be described as being as ‘Cool as a Mountain Stream’. In some posh circles Cocktail Cigarettes were all the rage, these came in a flat box and were made in pretty pastel colours with gold filter tips, not exactly a box you could pass around the public bar of The George on a Friday night! Then there were those terrible things called herbal cigarettes; not being made of tobacco and so contained no nicotine it was claimed that you could smoke these without any fear of infection or disease. I must say that way back in the 1960’s I did actually buy a packet and try them, it was like smoking a bonfire, hot, dry and tasted terrible. BUT I understand that they are still on the market!!!
Naturally we are all too young to remember Cigarette Cards but I do remember collecting unusual match boxes (White Heather and Collis being just two) and I suppose the pipe manufactures must have had a big down turn in trade as well, which probably saved a good few mature Briar bushes!!
When we were kids smoking was the norm at home, at work, in the pub or in the cinema where up on the screen the glamorous Hollywood actress always posed with a cigarette in a holder and the smoke drifting languidly upwards.
Now today, as far as I can remember, I have only two friends that smoke, I do not even have an ashtray in the house and as I look around at the young people these days I am sure that there are more girls who smoke than men. Finally do you remember the old no smoking advert that used to say it must be ‘like kissing an ashtray’.
Keep in touch
Peter
DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk
You Write:
Melv asks:
When we moved from Court Lane to Manor Court did the Headmasters secretary move with us or did she stay behind in Court Lane. I think the Secretary at Manor Court was Mrs Richardson but I am not sure, can anyone help?
News and Views:
Handwritten lyrics by John Lennon for the Beatles' "A Day In The Life" sold for $1.2 million at a New York City auction on June 18th. The winning bid was placed by phone and the buyer remained anonymous.
On this day 30th July 1960-1965.
On 30/07/1960 the number one single was Please Don't Tease - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Elvis Is Back - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 30/07/1961 the number one single was Temptation - Everly Brothers and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was Harpers West One (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £not very interesting and 13.25 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was No Hiding Place (AR).
On 30/07/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Pot Luck - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 30/07/1963 the number one single was Confessin' - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 30/07/1964 the number one single was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 30/07/1965 the number one single was Mr Tambourine Man - Byrds and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
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