THE CIGARETTE.

It was a beautiful day, the sun shining and wispy clouds floating in the blue skies. There was a soft breeze cooling the warm afternoon.

When was this idyllic afternoon, it was a September day in nineteen fifty-four. Present were my fourteen-year-old brother, the other boy from the village and myself; we were eleven-years-old three years younger than my brother.

What was the occasion, well, it was one of a cloak and dagger type of assignment?

I remember it well, we three, were sitting in a field under a hawthorn tree, well away from habitation. The only company, a few cows, and sheep. Now the story can unfold.

My brother removed from his pocket, a rather crushed but not broken cigarette solicited from my mother's cigarette packet.

Now the moment of truth, a box of matches were produced, and my brother lit the cigarette. He passed it to me. Unfortunately, I did not see the change in the colour of my brother's face.

I sucked the smoke into my mouth and inhaled. I started to sweat profusely; the white clouds began to spin around my head, it seemed, then I was violently sick.

Why oh why did I not see the light. Instead, I carried on to the next cigarette; that was to be the mode, for the next forty years.

Can I add a little extra piece here, at a shop/cafe just outside the school gates, where one was able to buy a pack of 'Domino' for a couple of pennies(tuppence as we would say in the day)? They were a small cigarettes packet not much bigger that a domino piece, and it contained three cigarettes with matches stuck to the back of the pack. You could also buy a 'king size' cigarette but that cost threepence(thruppence as we would say in the day).

Fast forward some forty years, with this song in mind; Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli - Time to Say Goodbye.

This song emanates the sentiments and the torturous mental battle when one gives up cigarettes, apart from that, I love to listen to this song.

With this song in mind, I refer to the smoking and what it has done to me.

My state of health was such that I still could not do without the nasty 'weed.'

I found I had difficulty in going up the stairs to bed, without stopping at least two times; there are thirteen stair steps. It seems to be okay when I am in bed.

In the morning I come down from my bedroom straight to the toilet, there I vomit several mouthfuls of black speckled mucous, acrid in both smell and taste.
My next action was to get a cigarette with my morning coffee, so the next smoking day goes on.

The cure was a bit of a surprise to me, my daughter said to me, Dad, if you stop smoking I will never smoke in my life.

It was something that affected my thinking; my schoolgirl daughter worried enough about me, to suggest this.

I acted swiftly, to fulfill my little girl's wish. I found, in the first two weeks of stopping, that the craving was so intense, that I almost gave up.

My resolve, in many ways, was tested during that early period. Such as when I was with one of my social care clients, he offered me a cigarette.

I did take the cigarette and put it in my pocket.

The end of this story is almost a replay of that time in nineteen-fifty-four.

My next client call was in a neighboring town some twelve miles away. During the journey, I pulled into a lay-by. I took the cigarette that my client had given me, I opened the glove compartment, I still had all the paraphernalia as a hand rolling cigarettes was my thing.

I pondered, then I had the mental argument with myself, and I started to weaken.

I took the cigarette, split it open and proceeded to roll myself a 'fag'(slang for a cigarette). I put the 'fag' to my lips, lit and sucked in the smoke.

As in nineteen-fifty-four, the effect was immediate; I started to shake, sweating profusely and feeling both dizzy and nauseous.

I could have done as I did all those years ago, take another drag of the smoke, and carry on as before, a cigarette smoker.

I did not let my daughter down; I took all of the said paraphernalia and threw it out of the car to the side of the road.

I was still in the throws of that single inhalation; it took some ten minutes before my mind and body were stable enough for me to carry on with my journey.

Here, the story ends, I have never had a cigarette since that day. It took one year for the filthy mucous muck to remove from my lungs.

I am now at seventy-two a very healthy man, and my daughter kept her side of the bargain and had never smoked a cigarette in her life.