GLAMOUR
“Why did
you even start, Nan?”
“How
could I not? Smoking was glamorous in the sixties.
I remember people like Ingrid
Bergman and Humphrey Bogart – a sultry film star waiting for the handsome
leading man to flick his gold lighter.
We used
to practise with sweet cigarettes after school, and bought packs of five
Woodbines to share behind the bike sheds.
A slim
case was a standard twenty-first birthday gift, filled with pastel-coloured
cigarettes. You bought menthols to be ‘cool’, or Abdullahs to appear daring.
Smoking
was normal – everyone did it.
Nobody ever said it could kill us.”
..........................................................................................
I'm still in the throes of renovating the cottage we are due to move into at the end of the month, so this week's story for Friday Fictioneers is the best I could come up with over this morning's cuppa. Thanks to Yvette Prior for the photo ans to https://rochellewisoff.com/ for hosting Friday Fictioneers.
To my fellow FF writers, please forgive me if yours is not one of the few I manage to comment on this month.
How times have changed.
ReplyDeleteYou're too young to remember the 60s!
DeleteSome of the old cigarette adverts are just incredible - the lies they told and got away with!
ReplyDeleteI don't remember any except the one that ended 'It's the tobacco that counts'.
DeleteIt was always so glamorous in films. I wonder why so many still smoke now we're wiser. A great little cameo, Liz.
ReplyDeleteOn the TV now when the programme is set a few decades ago they're always smoking. It's a cheap way of dating a scene IMO.
DeleteNice one, Liz. It's true that smoking was considered glamorous - you only have to watch those old Hollywood movies. I remember a scene with Bette Davis where the male lead (can't remember the actor) lights two cigarettes simultaneously and hands one to her in what was a super-cool, romantic gesture? Amazing, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSusan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
My daughter used to do that for her husband :)
DeleteTrue. Smoking looks cool at the beginning. Effects become apparent many years later.
ReplyDeleteIt was a right of passage in my younger days.
DeleteIt was so cool back then... and amazes me now that shows like Madmen brought it back. I know it represented the times but holy moly... I quit over 21 years ago and I was starting to want one... well not really, but you know...
ReplyDeleteDale, I do know. I only quit eight years ago - they were so cheap where we lived it seemed silly not to smoke! I enjoyed it, and they went so well with a drink. Sigh.
DeleteI totally get it, Liz.
DeleteBy the way... got me a book in the mail last week... ;-)
Oooh! So you were one of my two sales this month? Spread the word, please!
DeleteAs they said, catch them young. In Indian movies of the 70s and 80s, a new type of hero started to emerge. He was rugged, angry, way too cool, and needless to say - smoked oh so stylishly. It was a change from the clean shaven, mild mannered heroes of the 50s and 60s and before you knew it a generation of youngsters started smoking.
ReplyDeleteAnd being rugged, angry and cool?
DeleteI'm always wondering what it is we do now that will ultimately turn out to be fatal... (apart from all the obvious things, of course)
ReplyDeleteFighting each other over so-called religious differences, probably.
DeleteOscar Wilde said, the delicious thing about a cigarette is that it's so unsastifying
ReplyDeleteOscar Wilde made a virtue of inventing Quotes!
DeleteSo true. That's when I was growing up, too, and smoking was normal. Lucille Ball, Dick VanDyke Mary Tyler Moore--it's an endless list. Things sure have changed.
ReplyDeleteThey sure have.
DeleteDear Liz,
ReplyDeleteThis is so true to life. Well written.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thanks Rochelle .
DeleteI was with a friend today and we stopped at the local art gallery. A group of young people had gathered around back smoking cigarettes.
ReplyDelete"Why do young people smoke?" I wondered out loud.
"Beats me" she answered.
In our day it was to conform, now it's to rebel.
DeleteGreat piece.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lisa.
Delete