0:00:15 > 0:00:20- Are we on?- Yes.- I'm sorry. Have we started?
0:00:20 > 0:00:25OK. My first cigarette of the day. Here we go, the cliche.
0:00:25 > 0:00:27Cigarette and a cup of tea.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30First one of the day.
0:00:31 > 0:00:33And the second one...
0:00:34 > 0:00:38with another cup of tea, so maybe I'm addicted to tea!
0:00:43 > 0:00:47If you want to call it an addiction. Maybe it's because it's very nice.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49That'll get them inflamed, won't it? Come on!
0:00:50 > 0:00:55It was subliminal. These things that people were doing, it affected your behaviour.
0:00:56 > 0:01:02Smoking is something that cut across all class, cultural, gender things.
0:01:05 > 0:01:07In every area of life throughout Britain,
0:01:07 > 0:01:10we have lived with a highly conspicuous creature.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14A being that is distinctly sociable, with well-defined habits
0:01:14 > 0:01:16and quite simple needs.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20Some girls, it's the way they smoke a cigarette.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23They're licking their lips and looking at you at the same time.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25And you think, "Oh, God".
0:01:26 > 0:01:29This species has been native to our shores for generations,
0:01:29 > 0:01:34ever since the early explorers returned from the Caribbean.
0:01:34 > 0:01:38But it has come to face the double threat of encroaching predators
0:01:38 > 0:01:39and shrinking habitat.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45We know this creature as The Smoker.
0:01:45 > 0:01:47And this is their story.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01The smoker took one of its earliest
0:02:01 > 0:02:05and most significant evolutionary steps during the Victorian era.
0:02:07 > 0:02:11At this time, smoking was generally regarded as a lowly act.
0:02:11 > 0:02:15A habit Queen Victoria herself frowned upon.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20The Victorians have a problem with pleasure.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24A mass-consuming society is bringing all forms of new objects
0:02:24 > 0:02:28and items of mass consumption and new things to be enjoyed,
0:02:28 > 0:02:30but they feel guilty about this.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33They are, in a sense, a bunch of prudes.
0:02:33 > 0:02:38They are against gambling. They set up organisations against alcohol.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44And so, in many senses, they're against smoking as well.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48And so when people begin to smoke more in the Victorian period,
0:02:48 > 0:02:50they have to rationalise what they are doing.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54They can't be seen to just be enjoying tobacco purely for itself.
0:02:56 > 0:03:01They have to do something to make it fit into the wider ethos of the age.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04In the same way that a good wine connoisseur
0:03:04 > 0:03:06would know all about the cultivation of his wine,
0:03:06 > 0:03:10the Victorian smoker launched into an obsessive pursuit
0:03:10 > 0:03:14to discover everything he could about the tobacco leaf.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19And from then, once you've made tobacco into an act that only
0:03:19 > 0:03:22the true connoisseur could appreciate, then you can start
0:03:22 > 0:03:25talking about more individualised aspects of one's smoking pleasure.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32By now, the smoker had been convinced that tobacco
0:03:32 > 0:03:36not only improved the intellect and powers of concentration,
0:03:36 > 0:03:40but could help define the identity of the individual.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43If one was going to be an individual smoker,
0:03:43 > 0:03:47that smoked differently from everyone else that was expressing this
0:03:47 > 0:03:51kind of culture of bourgeois masculinity,
0:03:51 > 0:03:54then the real hero of all the smokers was, of course, Sherlock Holmes,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57because he smoked like nobody else.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02What do you make of it all?
0:04:02 > 0:04:06Well, it all seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business.
0:04:06 > 0:04:09Certainly when he was agitated and trying to think,
0:04:09 > 0:04:11he would smoke rather furiously.
0:04:11 > 0:04:14But other times, in a particularly difficult case,
0:04:14 > 0:04:16it was a "three-pipe problem".
0:04:16 > 0:04:20- It seems elementary to me. - Marvellous, Watson.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24Sherlock's expertise doesn't just stretch to his own smoking habits,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27it stretched to everybody else's as well.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31And I think at one point he told Dr Watson that he was planning
0:04:31 > 0:04:37a monograph on the different types of ashes of 300 forms of tobacco.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41If we take this path, we may see something of interest.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49Throughout its history, the smoker has co-opted advances
0:04:49 > 0:04:51made by others.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55As manufacturing techniques improved,
0:04:55 > 0:05:00American industrialist James Albert Bonsack invented
0:05:00 > 0:05:03the first cigarette rolling machine and the date was 1880.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05Smoking would never be the same again.
0:05:08 > 0:05:10In London, on Bond Street, you had Mr Philip Morris
0:05:10 > 0:05:14and you had Mr Benson and Mr Hedges, but the Wills brothers
0:05:14 > 0:05:19were able to make cigarettes readily affordable in huge numbers,
0:05:19 > 0:05:21selling for just a penny each.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23Brands like Woodbines, Cinderella,
0:05:23 > 0:05:27became the biggest-selling cigarettes in Britain.
0:05:27 > 0:05:30And hence, from the end of the 19th century onwards,
0:05:30 > 0:05:35you had a mass market for cigarettes that could easily compete with
0:05:35 > 0:05:38and outstrip the market for cigars or snuff,
0:05:38 > 0:05:40or any of the other tobacco products.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46By the dawn of the 20th century, tobacco was an acceptable
0:05:46 > 0:05:50and enjoyable habit for a growing number of smokers.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54And would soon find a new and powerful champion.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01You refer to the Edwardian era as the golden age,
0:06:01 > 0:06:02without a shadow of a doubt.
0:06:02 > 0:06:07And bear in mind that Queen Victoria had passed away in 1901,
0:06:07 > 0:06:10and Edward VII, the new king,
0:06:10 > 0:06:13at the first levee that he held, issued the immortal words,
0:06:13 > 0:06:15"Gentlemen, you may smoke."
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Because his mother had been violently against smoking
0:06:18 > 0:06:21throughout her incredibly long reign,
0:06:21 > 0:06:25whilst he, perhaps as a rebellion against his mother's attitude,
0:06:25 > 0:06:30had always been a cigar smoker since the 1860s or 1870s.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33So, there we had a period great wealth in the United Kingdom.
0:06:33 > 0:06:39It was a time that so many wonderful products - champagnes, cognacs -
0:06:39 > 0:06:43became embedded here in the United Kingdom.
0:06:43 > 0:06:46And certainly Havana cigars were an essential part
0:06:46 > 0:06:48of that historical development.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56In 1914, the British Empire entered the First World War.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05The Western Front became a breeding ground as the trenches created
0:07:05 > 0:07:09perfect conditions for smokers.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15It was a great comfort to everyone to have cigarettes.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20It did something to their nerves that needed to be done.
0:07:21 > 0:07:26And I've seen people absolutely confused before they had
0:07:26 > 0:07:29a cigarette, and then as soon as they had their first drag, as they
0:07:29 > 0:07:33called it, they'd settle down and I could see the relief on their faces.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38In the circumstances in which we were living in those days,
0:07:38 > 0:07:42in the mud, in holes in the ground, in trenches,
0:07:42 > 0:07:45sometimes in expectation of anything that could happen,
0:07:45 > 0:07:47the cigarette was something they looked forward to,
0:07:47 > 0:07:49and everyone would want a fag.
0:07:51 > 0:07:52Before they went over the top,
0:07:52 > 0:07:56they would have that drag and then they would figure out a way,
0:07:56 > 0:07:59because they would have something else to do.
0:07:59 > 0:08:00There were campaigns
0:08:00 > 0:08:06and money-raising efforts at home to buy the Tommies packs of cigarettes.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10And by the end of the war, the cigarette had not just become
0:08:10 > 0:08:14a very popular item, it was almost a patriotic item.
0:08:14 > 0:08:19# Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag and smile, smile, smile
0:08:21 > 0:08:25# While you've Lucifer to light your fag... #
0:08:25 > 0:08:28But for a different class of military smoker,
0:08:28 > 0:08:30the humble cigarette was not enough.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33Cigars were reserved for the officer class, shall we say.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37There is a story about what was known as the NAAFI,
0:08:37 > 0:08:40which was buying all the products for the army,
0:08:40 > 0:08:47and he got an order for 1,000 cigars for Sir John French,
0:08:47 > 0:08:52who was the commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France,
0:08:52 > 0:08:54so they established a relationship,
0:08:54 > 0:08:58but then he gave him an order for seven million of them.
0:08:58 > 0:09:03And it's still the largest order ever achieved for a Cuban cigar
0:09:03 > 0:09:08anywhere in the world at any time, as a single order.
0:09:08 > 0:09:12And I suppose it indicated how long the NAAFI thought the war was going to last.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17# Pack up your troubles in your old kitbag and smile, smile, smile. #
0:09:22 > 0:09:24When the Tommies finally did return home,
0:09:24 > 0:09:28they found the war had created yet another new habitat for the smoker,
0:09:28 > 0:09:32as factory life had encouraged women to take up tobacco.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35The women went out to work more, they were working in factories,
0:09:35 > 0:09:38and they were under very much the same stresses as both
0:09:38 > 0:09:40the men at home and the men fighting on a front line.
0:09:40 > 0:09:44So they turned to cigarettes in the same way as the men did.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49# Puff
0:09:49 > 0:09:51# Puff
0:09:51 > 0:09:52# Puff
0:09:52 > 0:09:55# Puff your cares away... #
0:09:59 > 0:10:02Although women were now lighting up more than ever before,
0:10:02 > 0:10:07this particular creature was still discouraged from public displays.
0:10:07 > 0:10:12If a woman smoked a cigarette she was looked upon as very, very unusual.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15Some did it as a bravado.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18And that was mostly what they did in those days.
0:10:18 > 0:10:21It wasn't very common.
0:10:21 > 0:10:25Very seldom did you find a woman smoker, and it was looked down upon.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36In the street, it was unladylike. You know?
0:10:38 > 0:10:41But possibly on the tops of buses.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46There was assumptions that smoking meant you were sexually promiscuous.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49Obviously, a woman who was very well-to-do could
0:10:49 > 0:10:54get away with it because, clearly, her reputation was established,
0:10:54 > 0:10:57but in general, smoking in the streets was frowned upon.
0:10:57 > 0:11:03# Take me with you. #
0:11:03 > 0:11:07But the smoker is a species prepared to alter its own environment.
0:11:07 > 0:11:08In the early 20s,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12women in the big cities of Britain started to challenge conventions,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16consciously making themselves visible while enjoying a good smoke.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21Certainly the big cities like London, smoking becomes
0:11:21 > 0:11:24increasingly commonplace amongst middle-class women.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27And when the mass observation did some surveys on smoking
0:11:27 > 0:11:31they found women talking about how they practised smoking
0:11:31 > 0:11:34and how they persevered, even though it tasted awful.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37But they persevered because they wanted to be able to smoke
0:11:37 > 0:11:39and wanted to be seen to smoke.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47It's a way of saying you're a modern woman -
0:11:47 > 0:11:50liberated, successful, attractive.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53There were increasingly images of stylish, healthy,
0:11:53 > 0:11:55sporty, successful women smoking.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58So it's a very strong association between smoking
0:11:58 > 0:12:02and the good life, the active life.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06In the Twenties and Thirties,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10you could find doctors commenting on how smoking a cigarette
0:12:10 > 0:12:13is really good for the nerves and should be encouraged.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15Naturally, it gets picked up in relation to producing
0:12:15 > 0:12:17the slim, modern body for a woman.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22One series of adverts said something like, you have an upper-class
0:12:22 > 0:12:26woman talking to her butler, and she says, "I'm going to replace
0:12:26 > 0:12:30"the unwholesome habit of nibbling with the wholesome habit of smoking."
0:12:36 > 0:12:40While in the UK prejudices against women smoking were on the wane,
0:12:40 > 0:12:42in America, women were still constricted
0:12:42 > 0:12:45by the taboo of smoking in public.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50Once more, the smoker called upon its intellect to help it develop.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57In the late 1920s, Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00a New York PR executive, was asked to help.
0:13:04 > 0:13:08One day, Mr George Hill, president of the American tobacco company,
0:13:08 > 0:13:12called me in and said, "We're losing half of our market."
0:13:12 > 0:13:13And I said, "Why, Mr Hill?"
0:13:16 > 0:13:20He said, "There's a taboo by men that does not permit women
0:13:20 > 0:13:22"to smoke in public.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25"What can we do about breaking down that taboo?"
0:13:27 > 0:13:30Bernays' research suggested that the cigarette
0:13:30 > 0:13:32was a symbol of male power and of the penis.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38If women could be shown a connection between cigarettes
0:13:38 > 0:13:41and the ideal of sexual power, then women would smoke.
0:13:42 > 0:13:46He staged a publicity stunt during a parade where women smoked openly,
0:13:46 > 0:13:49calling their cigarettes "Torches of Freedom".
0:13:54 > 0:13:58So I called up a debutante friend of mine and asked her to get another friend
0:13:58 > 0:14:03and to walk in the Easter Parade lighting "Torches of Freedom",
0:14:03 > 0:14:09to protest man's inhumanity to women by the taboo of smoking.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13He knew this would be an outcry and he knew
0:14:13 > 0:14:17all of the photographers would be there to capture this moment.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20And so he was ready with a phrase,
0:14:20 > 0:14:23which was "Torches of Freedom",
0:14:23 > 0:14:28so here you have a symbol, women - young women, debutantes -
0:14:28 > 0:14:32smoking a cigarette in public with a phrase that means anybody
0:14:32 > 0:14:36who believes in this kind of equality pretty much has to support them
0:14:36 > 0:14:40in the ensuing debate about this, because torches of freedom.
0:14:40 > 0:14:46And so, the next day, this was not just in all of the New York papers,
0:14:46 > 0:14:49it was across the United States and around the world.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54And from that point forward, female cigarette sales began to rise.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59He had made them socially acceptable with a single symbolic act.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05Bernays strategy paid off and now women were freely
0:15:05 > 0:15:08smoking cigarettes on the streets of America.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16The smoker began to be seen far and wide,
0:15:16 > 0:15:20with Hollywood eager to capture its behaviour in films.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27Cigarette smoking starts appearing in some of the silent movies
0:15:27 > 0:15:30in the 1920s, but towards the end of the Twenties,
0:15:30 > 0:15:35and certainly by 1930, cigarette smoking becomes commonplace.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40Given that cinema was such a common pastime,
0:15:40 > 0:15:44they were exposed to lots of filmic representations of smoking.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47The cinema is fundamentally important to why people
0:15:47 > 0:15:49want to smoke in the first place.
0:15:51 > 0:15:54The movies taught men and women to smoke together,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57so whilst the films might offer great images of individualism
0:15:57 > 0:16:02for men and women, they also taught people how to smoke as companions.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06In Now, Voyager in 1942, Paul Henreid famously lights
0:16:06 > 0:16:10two cigarettes in his mouth before passing one over to Bette Davis.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13Shall we just have a cigarette on it?
0:16:15 > 0:16:16Yes.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19You felt that you were like the film stars.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23I remember Bette Davis and Paul Henreid.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26When he lit his two cigarettes in Now, Voyager
0:16:26 > 0:16:29when they were about to part, and it was very sad and dramatic
0:16:29 > 0:16:33and he lit these two cigarettes in his mouth and he handed her one,
0:16:33 > 0:16:35and it was poignant somehow.
0:16:38 > 0:16:39So everybody started doing that.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42What a good idea. With your girlfriend or your wife,
0:16:42 > 0:16:44"Here you are, darling. Here's yours."
0:16:44 > 0:16:49A lot of us burnt our fingers because the cigarette would
0:16:49 > 0:16:52stick to your lip, and you'd run your fingers down it
0:16:52 > 0:16:53and burn them on the end.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56We could never do it as well as he did.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58I don't know how many takes he had to do in that film.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00Maybe he didn't do it right the first time.
0:17:00 > 0:17:04But these are sort of iconic images you have of people,
0:17:04 > 0:17:07and, of course, it had the air of sophistication about it.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14People talking, conversation, the dialogue, that was part of it,
0:17:14 > 0:17:16that was part of the whole picture.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21In American films especially, and particularly the films
0:17:21 > 0:17:25of Humphrey Bogart, smoking becomes a highly individualised activity.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29It becomes central to appearing as a lone individual,
0:17:29 > 0:17:32somebody who's apart from the crowd, somebody who is different,
0:17:32 > 0:17:35even though you're doing the same thing as everyone else.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39I think the importance of cinema is it actually introduces
0:17:39 > 0:17:41the sexual vocabulary of smoking.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43What's wrong with you?
0:17:43 > 0:17:46Nothing you can't fix.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51Bacall and Bogart in The Big Sleep,
0:17:51 > 0:17:54you see the two cigarettes together in the ashtray.
0:17:54 > 0:18:00The cigarette is used to suggest that they get off together.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03No more need to be said.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12In 1939 came the Second World War, and with it,
0:18:12 > 0:18:14cigarette consumption exploded.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21Such was the influence of smokers that it was said that the war
0:18:21 > 0:18:25saw Britain sign a deal with America which meant spending
0:18:25 > 0:18:28more money buying cigarettes than on tanks, ships or planes.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40The Army's great leader remembered his men,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44personally distributing cigarettes sent to him for the purpose.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47Monty went round handing out cigarettes to soldiers
0:18:47 > 0:18:51and encouraged everybody to smoke, and certainly in the war we smoked.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54And it really was when you were rather short of food
0:18:54 > 0:18:56and food was rather boring,
0:18:56 > 0:18:58smoking was quite a help, I must say.
0:18:58 > 0:19:04Churchill and his colleagues ensured that many tons of British shipping
0:19:04 > 0:19:07was devoted to bringing tobacco over from the United States.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10This was at a time of rationing,
0:19:10 > 0:19:13so one can imagine the controversy when non-smokers were to find
0:19:13 > 0:19:17that crucial supplies of what they might wish to consume and eat
0:19:17 > 0:19:21were being given up to assure that smoking products would reach the UK.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26Churchill became the most famous cigar smoker in history,
0:19:26 > 0:19:28I would say.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31And because he loved cigars, the Cubans actually sent him
0:19:31 > 0:19:34thousands of cigars every year throughout World War II
0:19:34 > 0:19:38because they wanted him to stay focused and de-stressed,
0:19:38 > 0:19:43and so they said, you can have all these cigars and smoke away,
0:19:43 > 0:19:44because we'll look after you
0:19:44 > 0:19:47and you can look after the rest of the world.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51Ironically enough, Churchill never smoked a whole cigar.
0:19:51 > 0:19:52He would just play at them.
0:19:52 > 0:19:54He'd put this bit of brown paper round it,
0:19:54 > 0:19:55call it his Belly Bando,
0:19:55 > 0:19:57and puff away and stop it getting damp.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00He'd only smoke about a third of it, maybe less,
0:20:00 > 0:20:01and he'd throw it away.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03Then he'd get another one and do this throughout the day.
0:20:08 > 0:20:13Wartime paper shortages led Churchill to ban cigarette cards,
0:20:15 > 0:20:18which had been a popular collectible since Victorian times.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24The cards had often featured patriotic themes,
0:20:24 > 0:20:26such as army uniforms and combat shirts.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31Little did Churchill know that these cigarette cards were now
0:20:31 > 0:20:33helping the German war effort.
0:20:38 > 0:20:44Now this was a set issued of 50 cards depicting lots
0:20:44 > 0:20:48of different British warships, and in the late 1930s an advert
0:20:48 > 0:20:52was put in the newspapers offering to buy these sets and then,
0:20:52 > 0:20:58in actual fact, Germans were using these to identify the enemy ships,
0:20:58 > 0:21:01and destroy them and so on.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04One of the U-boats was captured and one of these albums was found inside.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13It was estimated that over 80% of British troops
0:21:13 > 0:21:17returned home from the war as smokers.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20Everything possible was done for them.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22Cigarettes and a snack for each man on his way home.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26But among the German military,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29smoking may have been less popular for a little known reason.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34Hitler, who was an opponent of smoking,
0:21:34 > 0:21:36made sure that Nazi scientists conducted
0:21:36 > 0:21:39some experiments into smoking and its links with lung cancer.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41It wasn't a great deal of research,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44but there was sufficient for them to believe that there was a link,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47and it's research that could have been used productively.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50And the thing with the German papers is that it was carried out
0:21:50 > 0:21:52by Nazi scientists,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55and Nazi science didn't have a great reputation after the war.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57So much of it was forgotten about,
0:21:57 > 0:22:02several of the scientists were killed in combat or went AWOL,
0:22:02 > 0:22:06and there wasn't the will to believe that the Nazis had found
0:22:06 > 0:22:08something that nobody else in the world had found.
0:22:11 > 0:22:15Nobody that is, except an eccentric young Glaswegian GP named
0:22:15 > 0:22:19Lennox Johnson, who was conducting his own research into smoking.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23As early as the 1920s, he was speculating about the likely
0:22:23 > 0:22:27long-term health effects smokers were exposing themselves to.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30Lennox Johnson was an extraordinary character,
0:22:30 > 0:22:34because he said that cigarettes, and specifically nicotine,
0:22:34 > 0:22:38were addictive decades before this was being said by governments.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44And he was saying that smoking caused lung cancer
0:22:44 > 0:22:49many years before this was being said by anybody in the English language.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55He was a passionate hater of smoking
0:22:55 > 0:22:59and believed that England could be made completely tobacco free.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02And yet, he was virtually ignored in his own lifetime.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05He is almost entirely forgotten about, and yet,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08he was so far ahead of his time.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15He was fascinated to the point of obsession with nicotine itself.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17Now when he gave up smoking, he went to a local chemist
0:23:17 > 0:23:20and bought himself a small bottle of nicotine.
0:23:20 > 0:23:23Not pure of course, because it would immediately kill you.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26Heavily diluted noses of nicotine, but still very dangerous.
0:23:29 > 0:23:31And began injecting himself with them.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35And he nearly died on several occasions.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41On the last of these occasions, his wife found him lying on
0:23:41 > 0:23:45the floor in the house, close to death, and managed to revive him.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52Johnson then gathered 35 volunteers to carry out
0:23:52 > 0:23:55the most comprehensive nicotine experiment of the era.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02He went on to discover that after being injected with nicotine
0:24:02 > 0:24:05over a period of time, those taking part in the trial
0:24:05 > 0:24:07began to prefer nicotine to cigarettes,
0:24:07 > 0:24:09and that when the injections were withheld
0:24:09 > 0:24:12the volunteers would develop cravings.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17By the early Forties, Johnson was not only able to link smoking
0:24:17 > 0:24:19to lung cancer, but he had also devised
0:24:19 > 0:24:23a nicotine replacement therapy to wean smokers off cigarettes.
0:24:25 > 0:24:30But even after obsessive attempts to get his findings published,
0:24:30 > 0:24:32Johnson was repeatedly ignored
0:24:32 > 0:24:34by the entire British medical establishment.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38This causes him some frustration.
0:24:38 > 0:24:42He resolves to burn down the offices of the British Medical Association.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49He plots to smack Churchill's cigar out of his mouth on a public visit.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51He goes to see Sylvia Pankhurst, the suffragette,
0:24:51 > 0:24:53for advice on how to get arrested.
0:24:56 > 0:25:00He didn't go through with any of these things, but was clearly looking for publicity,
0:25:00 > 0:25:03and it was always publicity for his discoveries that he craved
0:25:03 > 0:25:06and that, on balance, he simply didn't receive.
0:25:09 > 0:25:12In 1948, Johnson begged for one more chance.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14Applying to the Medical Research Council for a grant
0:25:14 > 0:25:18to undertake official research into lung cancer,
0:25:18 > 0:25:21only to find out that two epidemiologists,
0:25:21 > 0:25:24Richard Doll and Bradford Hill, had already been given similar funding.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32Within two years of starting their research,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36Doll and Hill discovered there was a clear link between smoking and lung cancer.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41Their conclusions were that cigarette smoking
0:25:41 > 0:25:45was the cause of about 95% of lung cancers and then as we did
0:25:45 > 0:25:47the further studies in which we followed up people
0:25:47 > 0:25:50who smoked different amounts,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53we found that it was the cause of a lot of other diseases as well.
0:25:53 > 0:25:55It's not surprising when you realise
0:25:55 > 0:25:59that there are 4,000 different chemicals in tobacco smoke.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02The evidence was overwhelming.
0:26:02 > 0:26:03And now, unlike with Johnson,
0:26:03 > 0:26:07government and health authorities were ready to listen.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19Coffin nails. Yes, that's what cigarettes are,
0:26:19 > 0:26:22according to the Medical Research Council.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25We've heard something of the kind before, yet almost everybody
0:26:25 > 0:26:29smokes, including thousands young enough to know better.
0:26:29 > 0:26:31And as smoking is nowadays allowed nearly everywhere,
0:26:31 > 0:26:34it's on the increase year after year.
0:26:34 > 0:26:38So is lung cancer, a grim fact that can no longer be airily dismissed,
0:26:38 > 0:26:40certainly not by the Ministry of Health.
0:26:41 > 0:26:42In less than a decade,
0:26:42 > 0:26:46it had been proved that smoking was a direct cause of lung cancer.
0:26:46 > 0:26:51But smokers displayed a remarkable reluctance to accept the science.
0:26:51 > 0:26:55The culture of smoking is so entrenched in the 1940s
0:26:55 > 0:26:59and 1950s and into the 1960s that the health claims that were made
0:26:59 > 0:27:02against smoking by scientists in the early Fifties,
0:27:02 > 0:27:07by the Ministry of Health in 1957, by the Royal College of Physicians
0:27:07 > 0:27:11in 1962, the cumulative effect of all of these was not that great at all.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16Surveys have shown that many smokers,
0:27:16 > 0:27:19the majority of smokers in this country,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22don't really accept that there is any risk in cigarette smoking.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32If I'm going to get anything, I'll get it in any case.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38It's all based on statistics, that's one of the things that's wrong.
0:27:40 > 0:27:42I don't believe that much in statistics.
0:27:44 > 0:27:45My father died at 62
0:27:45 > 0:27:49from congestion of the lungs which was caused through smoking.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52He smoked a lot. But it doesn't worry me.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59It really wasn't news.
0:27:59 > 0:28:03Cigarettes were known as coffin nails in the 1940s and earlier,
0:28:03 > 0:28:06so it's not as if people didn't associate it with lung cancer.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08They were called coffin nails!
0:28:08 > 0:28:11Smoke that, and it's another nail in your coffin. It was a joke.
0:28:11 > 0:28:13So when the lung cancer thing came along,
0:28:13 > 0:28:15to be honest I don't think people were really bothered.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20None of my friends or family, none of them ever discussed it.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22Yet my grandfather died of lung cancer.
0:28:22 > 0:28:23But you didn't think about it.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26And it hadn't really got the message home at that point,
0:28:26 > 0:28:28so we just carried on smoking.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32These health statistics that you are slinging at us are entirely negative.
0:28:32 > 0:28:35No-one will stop me smoking by frightening me with figures,
0:28:35 > 0:28:38any more than they'll stop me driving on the motorway like a madman
0:28:38 > 0:28:41by showing me a film on television of crashed cars.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47So what we have in the 1950s is this extraordinary situation
0:28:47 > 0:28:49in which people become scientists.
0:28:49 > 0:28:53Likewise, the anecdote that one's grandmother lived to 95
0:28:53 > 0:28:55and smoked every day of her life
0:28:55 > 0:28:58and she was always fit as a fiddle is a scientific claim.
0:28:58 > 0:29:00And this is what people were doing.
0:29:00 > 0:29:02Now obviously the story is complicated.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05The tobacco companies denied there was any link between smoking
0:29:05 > 0:29:07and lung cancer, and other forms of ill-health.
0:29:07 > 0:29:10So far, what are the conclusions reached by organisation?
0:29:10 > 0:29:15I think there is need for much more research over a wide area
0:29:15 > 0:29:19and, in my opinion, to single out smoking as a causal agent is,
0:29:19 > 0:29:22on the evidence to date, completely unjustified.
0:29:22 > 0:29:24Thank you very much, Sir, for your help.
0:29:24 > 0:29:27Thank you very much for letting me put our views forward.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30- You better have a cigarette before you go home.- Thank you!
0:29:33 > 0:29:36Battle lines were now drawn between a complacent tobacco industry
0:29:36 > 0:29:38and a concerned medical profession.
0:29:38 > 0:29:40With their profits at risk,
0:29:40 > 0:29:44the cigarette companies, challenged more and more by scientists
0:29:44 > 0:29:48and government, needed a strategy to protect their interests.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51I read this report, cynically,
0:29:51 > 0:29:56because I'd had several comments to me, "Have you read this nonsense,
0:29:56 > 0:29:59"old boy, that these doctor chappies are coming out with?"
0:29:59 > 0:30:03So I read it in that frame of mind, and instead of which,
0:30:03 > 0:30:07I began to think, "What are we doing? We're killing people."
0:30:07 > 0:30:10Should this be happening?
0:30:10 > 0:30:13And I expected to find everyone as concerned as I was,
0:30:13 > 0:30:16and as worried as I was.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19And instead of which, I found just the opposite.
0:30:19 > 0:30:23Instead of saying, "Is this true? If so, what are we to do?"
0:30:23 > 0:30:26"Should we start research to counter it?
0:30:26 > 0:30:28Should we try to get a new form of cigarette?"
0:30:28 > 0:30:32Instead of that reaction, the reaction was,
0:30:32 > 0:30:33"How can we rubbish this?"
0:30:34 > 0:30:38The tobacco lobby quickly found ways to counter the findings.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42First, I must repeat that we do not accept the sweeping assertions
0:30:42 > 0:30:45in the report incriminating smoking.
0:30:45 > 0:30:47But do you accept what the government has said?
0:30:47 > 0:30:50No, I do not accept what the government has said.
0:30:50 > 0:30:52There are too many gaps in knowledge,
0:30:52 > 0:30:54too many inconsistencies in the evidence.
0:30:56 > 0:30:59One of those gaps, and a pretty yawning and smelly gap at that,
0:30:59 > 0:31:01is air pollution.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04The latest research suggests that if you want to cut your chances
0:31:04 > 0:31:08of incurring lung cancer in half, you'd better emigrate from this country.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17The tobacco industry produced its own scientific research,
0:31:17 > 0:31:21trying to disprove the link between smoking and lung cancer.
0:31:21 > 0:31:25Worried, but confused, the smoker, unique creature that it is,
0:31:25 > 0:31:29responded mostly by burying its head in the sand.
0:31:30 > 0:31:32In a big town like London, fumes from cars, trucks,
0:31:32 > 0:31:34factories, that sort of thing.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37I don't think smoking has got very much to do with it.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54With the 1950s turning into the 1960s,
0:31:54 > 0:31:57smoking remained stubbornly cool.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00# I was born in a bunk
0:32:00 > 0:32:03# Momma died and my daddy got drunk... #
0:32:03 > 0:32:04As well as adults,
0:32:04 > 0:32:07children were constantly surrounded by images of smoking.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14I started smoking when I was about 12 years old.
0:32:14 > 0:32:17You couldn't afford to buy anything, so you got straws.
0:32:17 > 0:32:20You got your milk every day, your free milk in the school.
0:32:20 > 0:32:22You kept the straw and you'd try to smoke it.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25A stupid thing to do, but that's what kids did.
0:32:25 > 0:32:27After a while, we had some pocket money.
0:32:27 > 0:32:31I'd climb over the wall in my playground in the lunch break
0:32:31 > 0:32:35and run down the road for everybody and bring the cigarettes back
0:32:35 > 0:32:37and we'd have private smokes down there.
0:32:37 > 0:32:39We were smoking every opportunity.
0:32:39 > 0:32:41If you went into a newsagent's or sweet shop,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44certainly in the North of England, I have no reason to imagine
0:32:44 > 0:32:48it wouldn't be everywhere, you'd see a sweet jar, one of those
0:32:48 > 0:32:52plastic or glass jars, containing gobstoppers, bull's-eyes or humbugs
0:32:52 > 0:32:56and it would say "Seps", and it would have loose cigarettes,
0:32:56 > 0:32:58individual cigarettes taken from packets and put in.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01"Seps", presumably from separates,
0:33:01 > 0:33:05and they would be on sale for 5p for one cigarette.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09And even then, I think I realised that these are for school children.
0:33:09 > 0:33:13So they were marketed quite clearly by your cheery, local,
0:33:13 > 0:33:18amiable newsagent, nice Mr Chadwick, in his cardigan,
0:33:18 > 0:33:22quite clearly saying, "Here, I want to sell, illegally,
0:33:22 > 0:33:25"a dangerous drug to small children."
0:33:25 > 0:33:29And no one thought, "Oh, my God, that's wicked!",
0:33:29 > 0:33:32it was just how weird, yet both cosy and normal,
0:33:32 > 0:33:36and odd and transgressive, smoking was in our culture.
0:33:36 > 0:33:39# Bring her back to Tobacco Road. #
0:33:41 > 0:33:43The wide availability of cigarettes
0:33:43 > 0:33:46and the number of young people taking up smoking
0:33:46 > 0:33:51placed the cigarette at the very centre of a teenager's journey to adulthood.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56I was the convent schoolgirl that had never gone out with the boy.
0:33:56 > 0:33:58I went to university,
0:33:58 > 0:34:02and I was absolutely bewitched by everything that was "it".
0:34:07 > 0:34:12The reality for me was, I started smoking because the girl who
0:34:12 > 0:34:18was in the next door room, she was the magnet for every bloke on campus.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21She was it.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25She looked like Francoise Hardy, who was this absolute amazing
0:34:25 > 0:34:29French singer, who all the boys lusted after.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33And she was the smoker and she got all the blokes after her
0:34:33 > 0:34:34and I wanted to be like her.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40You know, the old cliche about peer pressure,
0:34:40 > 0:34:42it went down a treat with me.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47Your first encounter with smoking as a vice,
0:34:47 > 0:34:51as a kind of sensual pleasure, was a real right of passage.
0:34:51 > 0:34:58Coming almost, I would think, almost simultaneously, with sex.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02I knew it was going to happen and, for me, it was about the age of 14
0:35:02 > 0:35:05or 15 and I remember Leonard Brown, one night when we were drinking
0:35:05 > 0:35:08cider with the some girls in the park he said, "Do you want a cig?"
0:35:08 > 0:35:11I smoked it, and I thought that's disgusting.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15He said to me, "But tomorrow you'll want another." And I did.
0:35:16 > 0:35:21The cigarette was an indispensable tool for courting girls.
0:35:21 > 0:35:25At the same time, women were using it to accentuate their seductive powers.
0:35:27 > 0:35:29Some girls, it's the way they smoke a cigarette,
0:35:29 > 0:35:32it's like they're licking their lips and looking at you
0:35:32 > 0:35:36at the same time, and you think, "Oh God, if I could just be there. Oh, please."
0:35:36 > 0:35:38Just put the cigarette down.
0:35:38 > 0:35:40You just wanted to be where the cigarette was.
0:35:40 > 0:35:44We're all thinking it's a phallic image. And it did look terribly sexy.
0:35:44 > 0:35:46But not all girls could do it.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49Well, it was part of the social intercourse,
0:35:49 > 0:35:51offering the girl a cigarette.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54It was a social ritual.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58Men would carry round matches and lighters in the hope
0:35:58 > 0:36:01that they'd meet a woman who'd take a cigarette out
0:36:01 > 0:36:05and sort of look at you and say, "Have you got a light, please?"
0:36:05 > 0:36:07If she liked you, she would like you and ask you.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10And if she was very beautiful and there were several men around,
0:36:10 > 0:36:14they all started licking their lips, and thinking she was gorgeous,
0:36:14 > 0:36:21and she was sat with a cigarette in her hand, she'd choose you.
0:36:21 > 0:36:26And you'd be going like this, shaking, and she would sort of hold
0:36:26 > 0:36:31your hand and look in your eyes and you thought, "I've pulled."
0:36:31 > 0:36:33And later on, if you're really lucky,
0:36:33 > 0:36:35you'd have a cigarette after you've had the sex, you see,
0:36:35 > 0:36:40or if you didn't want sex, you'd go straight to the cigarette.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50Cigarettes were also seen as essential fashion accessories.
0:36:55 > 0:36:59So all these very cool birds, as we called them then,
0:36:59 > 0:37:01with mini-skirts, going around and smoking
0:37:01 > 0:37:05looking really cool in the clubs, doing all this and sort of dancing
0:37:05 > 0:37:08and smoking as they're going along, that is the whole look.
0:37:08 > 0:37:10It's just amazing.
0:37:10 > 0:37:16Smoking is something that cut across all class, cultural, gender things.
0:37:16 > 0:37:21If you smoked roll-ups, you were either a tramp, an old man,
0:37:21 > 0:37:24or you were kind of hippyish.
0:37:24 > 0:37:28There were very, very mild cigarettes, like Silk Cut,
0:37:28 > 0:37:30which girls used to smoke.
0:37:30 > 0:37:33Then if you fancied yourself as a European film-maker,
0:37:33 > 0:37:34you smoked Gitanes.
0:37:34 > 0:37:37Free-spirited American, you smoked Marlboro Reds.
0:37:37 > 0:37:41If you were really kind of wacky, you smoked Sobranie,
0:37:41 > 0:37:44that were different-coloured, or if you were a bog-standard bloke,
0:37:44 > 0:37:47you smoked B&H gold, the ultimate bloke, beer monster fag.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50So the brand you smoked was like the music you listened to.
0:37:50 > 0:37:52It was like the clothes you wore.
0:37:52 > 0:37:56It was much more than just a smoke, it said something about yourself
0:37:56 > 0:37:59and the image you wanted to project to the world.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06Smoking had long infiltrated the visual media.
0:38:08 > 0:38:11And had been used to communicate what kind of person you were.
0:38:14 > 0:38:16In every film, you almost certainly saw a smoker.
0:38:16 > 0:38:20You had rebel smokers. James Dean smoked a cigarette, he was a rebel.
0:38:20 > 0:38:23Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, he's another rebel.
0:38:23 > 0:38:25And you kind of associate it with them.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28You didn't realise at the time that you're taking all this in.
0:38:28 > 0:38:29It was subliminal.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32These things people were doing affected your behaviour.
0:38:35 > 0:38:40I was searching as a teenager for what I was going to be like when I grew up.
0:38:40 > 0:38:44it wasn't quite sure, but what I certainly wanted to do at some point
0:38:44 > 0:38:49was to behave like Yul Brynner and get the respect this man had.
0:38:50 > 0:38:52The start of The Magnificent Seven,
0:38:52 > 0:38:55when these guys are looking for someone to help them
0:38:55 > 0:38:59stop these bandits taking over their village.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01So they go to look for these guys,
0:39:01 > 0:39:04and there's Yul Brynner on this hearse, dressed in black,
0:39:04 > 0:39:07and Steve McQueen gets on board with his shotgun
0:39:07 > 0:39:10and they ride up the hill to Boot Hill Cemetery.
0:39:10 > 0:39:12And they confronted this group of men.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17Hold it.
0:39:17 > 0:39:18Hold it right there.
0:39:21 > 0:39:22Anything wrong?
0:39:29 > 0:39:32Turn that rig around and get it down the hill.
0:39:33 > 0:39:34Ugh!
0:39:38 > 0:39:41At which point, Yul Brynner looks at him like that,
0:39:41 > 0:39:44and he strikes a match and smokes it, and he is looking at them
0:39:44 > 0:39:49while he's smoking and just does that.
0:39:49 > 0:39:51He's already shot a couple of guys,
0:39:51 > 0:39:54and they know just by looking at him that he will kill them.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57And he just gets the cigar and it looked so cool.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00And he just looks at them while he is lighting it and watches them,
0:40:00 > 0:40:02and they know he's serious.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05Because the next thing he will do when he drops that match
0:40:05 > 0:40:06is shoot all of them.
0:40:06 > 0:40:11That was just brilliant. I realised it looked cool to look like that.
0:40:11 > 0:40:14That you looked like somebody who can take care of yourself,
0:40:14 > 0:40:17you could handle a situation, because I've got the cigar.
0:40:17 > 0:40:20I'm looking at you and you know because I've got this big cigar
0:40:20 > 0:40:24I'm a serious guy and I can deal with all kinds of stuff,
0:40:24 > 0:40:25because I'm all grown-up.
0:40:25 > 0:40:27Maybe that's what it was.
0:40:27 > 0:40:30But it wasn't just the images on the big screen that made an impression.
0:40:32 > 0:40:37In the Sixties, watching a television programme was much more of an event.
0:40:37 > 0:40:40I absolutely loved Thunderbirds as a child,
0:40:40 > 0:40:43but when I went back and looked in detail through all 32 episodes
0:40:43 > 0:40:47of Thunderbirds there were through things that really struck me.
0:40:47 > 0:40:50One was that there was smoking in almost all the episodes.
0:40:50 > 0:40:53Lady Penelope always smokes a cigarette
0:40:53 > 0:40:56right from the beginning of every single episode.
0:40:56 > 0:40:58She stands in front of her pink Rolls Royce,
0:40:58 > 0:41:01so it's associated with wealth, health,
0:41:01 > 0:41:04happiness and very positive images.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08The other thing that really struck me was the way in which different types
0:41:08 > 0:41:12of characters smoked in different ways and smoked different products.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16So, for example, Jeff Tracy, the head of International rescue,
0:41:16 > 0:41:20the ex-astronaut and millionaire, he always smoked cigars.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22Once again, through these columns,
0:41:22 > 0:41:26we thank International Rescue for their invaluable help.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29Without them, the Carter family would have perished.
0:41:29 > 0:41:33Well, that's good. Kind of makes the job worthwhile.
0:41:33 > 0:41:37The clean-living Tracy Boys tend to all smoke cigarettes.
0:41:39 > 0:41:41I was really shocked, because the only person
0:41:41 > 0:41:45I remembered as smoking from my own memory of it was Lady Penelope,
0:41:45 > 0:41:49so I was just really surprised to see the images that I'd remembered
0:41:49 > 0:41:52and, equally, the images that I completely hadn't taken in myself
0:41:52 > 0:41:53as a child.
0:41:53 > 0:41:57In the Sixties, these images were ubiquitous, whereas now,
0:41:57 > 0:42:03the way that smoking was portrayed seemed really quite amazing
0:42:03 > 0:42:05and almost horrifying to us now.
0:42:13 > 0:42:17There's lots of things going on at a time when a young person
0:42:17 > 0:42:20might try their first cigarette and go on to continue smoking.
0:42:20 > 0:42:24Popular culture tells us that this is a sexy, fun thing to do.
0:42:24 > 0:42:25They see it in films and adverts.
0:42:25 > 0:42:28What they don't realise is actually the tobacco industry
0:42:28 > 0:42:31is specifically targeting them.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35They need to, because one in two of its users are going to die.
0:42:35 > 0:42:38You've got to recruit new ones to keep your numbers up.
0:42:40 > 0:42:44In spite of almost 20 years of reports linking smoking to lung cancer,
0:42:44 > 0:42:50by the 1970s, more than half the British adult population smoked.
0:42:50 > 0:42:54Many people, perhaps half the people smoking cigarettes
0:42:54 > 0:42:58in this country are, in technical terms, heavily dependent,
0:42:58 > 0:43:01in old-fashioned terms, heavily addicted on this drug.
0:43:01 > 0:43:05The question of smoking inhibiting your health,
0:43:05 > 0:43:08it doesn't worry a person of my age when I have some years to live.
0:43:15 > 0:43:1880% of smokers take up the habit before they're 19.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21At that point the evidence shows that they don't fully understand
0:43:21 > 0:43:24the risks, they don't fully understand the level of addiction.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33There's a number of issues involved that, first of all,
0:43:33 > 0:43:37you're saying this is a free choice that I have made,
0:43:37 > 0:43:39fully informed about the risks,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42but actually the evidence suggests that those are myths,
0:43:42 > 0:43:44propagated by the tobacco industry.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46It isn't a free choice.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02An ever-expanding tobacco industry was winning the battle against
0:44:02 > 0:44:06health professionals and government bodies, recruiting hundreds
0:44:06 > 0:44:09of new customers every day.
0:44:09 > 0:44:12# I read the news today, oh boy... #
0:44:12 > 0:44:14By the beginning of the Seventies,
0:44:14 > 0:44:18a dense cloud of tobacco smoke had conquered all public spaces.
0:44:18 > 0:44:22With very few exceptions, workplaces across Britain, pubs,
0:44:22 > 0:44:26restaurants, planes and buses were now a haze of smoke.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30Upstairs on buses when I was a kid, you went upstairs on a bus,
0:44:30 > 0:44:32and you couldn't see anything.
0:44:32 > 0:44:38A blue fug hung in the air. It was like being in a foxhole in Vietnam.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41You couldn't see a thing. You were like, "Hello?"
0:44:41 > 0:44:43You couldn't tell if your mates on the bus or not
0:44:43 > 0:44:46because there was a thick pall of blue smoke up there.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52And after a while I thought, it's a bit smoky in here,
0:44:52 > 0:44:53could you open the window?
0:44:53 > 0:44:55You'd pull his window down.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58I did this a couple of times, and it didn't go down well,
0:44:58 > 0:45:02so I wound it down and all the wind would come in, the smoke
0:45:02 > 0:45:07went straight to the back of the bus and they would all be coughing.
0:45:07 > 0:45:11"Whose idea was that?" This is what they used to do.
0:45:11 > 0:45:15# Made the bus in seconds flat
0:45:15 > 0:45:19# Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
0:45:19 > 0:45:21# Then somebody spoke and I went into a dream. #
0:45:24 > 0:45:27The songs of the day reflect that. The Beatles are a case in point.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30In A Day In The Life, they talk about going upstairs
0:45:30 > 0:45:32and having a smoke and going into a dream.
0:45:32 > 0:45:34There's an implication it could be about dope,
0:45:34 > 0:45:36but I don't think it is.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39They're talking about what lots of blokes, and women, did.
0:45:39 > 0:45:41You went upstairs and it was five minutes to yourself.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44You had a cigarette, looked out the window
0:45:44 > 0:45:46and daydreamed as the cigarette smoke went up.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58When jet planes came in the Fifties, people smoked on them.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01They had bars on them, on the big planes.
0:46:01 > 0:46:05You could stand up and go to the bar and you could smoke at the bar
0:46:05 > 0:46:06and smoke cigars and stuff,
0:46:06 > 0:46:10and the whole plane looked like one giant cigar tube.
0:46:10 > 0:46:11It was full of smoke.
0:46:11 > 0:46:14Eventually they moved it all to the back of the plane,
0:46:14 > 0:46:17so you could smoke near the toilets, so you could disguise
0:46:17 > 0:46:20the smell of the toilets after a few hours of the flight.
0:46:20 > 0:46:24Which is crazy. It was ridiculous, really.
0:46:33 > 0:46:37Some pubs were so full of smoke, you walk through the door
0:46:37 > 0:46:39and you could cut the smoke with a knife.
0:46:39 > 0:46:44And pass it and take it out with you, because you couldn't see the bar.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47I had been in some pubs where you could barely see the bar,
0:46:47 > 0:46:50and all the ceilings in all the old pubs were yellow.
0:46:50 > 0:46:53The roofs of pubs were stained
0:46:53 > 0:46:56that horrible catarrhal, jaundiced yellow.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58The smell used to get everywhere.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01It used to get in your clothes, in the carpet.
0:47:01 > 0:47:04There were times you thought, it's a bit too much.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07I'd be in pubs and walk out and think it was ridiculous,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10because I don't even need to light a cigarette,
0:47:10 > 0:47:13I just need to breathe in and save a fortune.
0:47:13 > 0:47:18If you smoked, you smoke anywhere and everywhere that you chose
0:47:18 > 0:47:21and nobody challenged you.
0:47:21 > 0:47:26You could light up in buses, on trains, in the Tube,
0:47:26 > 0:47:28there was one cinema where they asked you not to smoke.
0:47:28 > 0:47:30One cinema.
0:47:30 > 0:47:34That is extraordinary to think, even in the late-Seventies,
0:47:34 > 0:47:39there was only one place you could go and not be kippered all night long.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42People didn't even ask, "Do you mind if I smoke?"
0:47:43 > 0:47:45The clouds of smoke advanced unchallenged,
0:47:45 > 0:47:47becoming so ever-present
0:47:47 > 0:47:50that public perception about smoking numbers was inflated.
0:47:52 > 0:47:54While people believed that most of the nation smoked
0:47:54 > 0:47:56the reality showed that only half did.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01But this was about to change as more and more smokers transformed
0:48:01 > 0:48:06themselves into a growing sub-species, the non-smoker.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10I went six years smoking, and it was two things that really,
0:48:10 > 0:48:15really made the difference and made me want to give up smoking.
0:48:15 > 0:48:19One was I went to America to visit my sister
0:48:19 > 0:48:22and I got a tap on the shoulder in a Greyhound bus station by a man
0:48:22 > 0:48:26who said, "Excuse me, your smoking is damaging my health."
0:48:26 > 0:48:32I put it out, I did, I went out and I took heed.
0:48:32 > 0:48:37When I got back from America, I met a very fit bloke
0:48:37 > 0:48:42in both senses of the word, he was fit, but he was also very fit.
0:48:42 > 0:48:46He played squash and he hated the smell of smoke, and actually,
0:48:46 > 0:48:51I've said this many times, but snogging that guy
0:48:51 > 0:48:56without the smoke was absolutely worth a tonne of cigarettes.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58It was love that got me to give up.
0:49:01 > 0:49:05In the 1980s, Cecilia went on to become a health education officer,
0:49:05 > 0:49:09taking an early interest in smokers.
0:49:09 > 0:49:13Their first line of attack was the smoking restaurants of Bristol,
0:49:13 > 0:49:18canvassing diners if they were in favour of creating non-smoking areas.
0:49:18 > 0:49:19What would your reaction be
0:49:19 > 0:49:22if someone at another table asked you not to smoke?
0:49:22 > 0:49:25I should have regard for their wishes and stop smoking.
0:49:25 > 0:49:30We have to mobilise non-smokers to be more militant about being
0:49:30 > 0:49:36a non-smoker, and I think that in this way we can turn around
0:49:36 > 0:49:40this state of affairs where smoking is the norm, which it shouldn't be.
0:49:40 > 0:49:45Non-smoking areas of restaurants were thought of as a bit wussy.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48"What do you mean? They need their own bit?"
0:49:48 > 0:49:51Just get with the party, everybody smoke!
0:49:51 > 0:49:53It kills any other aroma in the room.
0:49:53 > 0:49:57If you're going to smoke, stay at home, smoke and have beans on toast.
0:49:57 > 0:50:00But don't go to a restaurant, it's pointless.
0:50:00 > 0:50:02I saw a guy eating a food,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05sipping gin and smoking a cigarette at the same time.
0:50:05 > 0:50:08I can't imagine what kind of a mind he had.
0:50:08 > 0:50:11It's still sticks in my mind, this one couple
0:50:11 > 0:50:14where the husband was smoking, the wife wasn't smoking.
0:50:14 > 0:50:16The husband said, "Oh no, I like smoking,
0:50:16 > 0:50:19people should be free to smoke anywhere."
0:50:19 > 0:50:21The wife said, "Actually, yes, I do mind."
0:50:21 > 0:50:24And the husband looked absolutely shocked at his wife and said,
0:50:24 > 0:50:27"Well, you never said that before."
0:50:27 > 0:50:29She said, "You never asked me!"
0:50:29 > 0:50:32- Good idea.- No smoking at all.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34It's unpleasant for people about them.
0:50:34 > 0:50:37She just stands there waving her hands around a lot.
0:50:37 > 0:50:39I could embarrass everybody that I'm with.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44The news after we published our research to find that 80%
0:50:44 > 0:50:48of people that we questioned were in favour of smoking
0:50:48 > 0:50:50and non-smoking areas. 80%!
0:50:50 > 0:50:53It was the most shocking revelation,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56that all of a sudden people who'd sat there not saying anything,
0:50:56 > 0:50:58when they were asked, they stood up and said,
0:50:58 > 0:51:00"Yes, I do mind if people smoke!"
0:51:00 > 0:51:05So there was a shift as a result of this small survey.
0:51:05 > 0:51:07In five eating places,
0:51:07 > 0:51:12three of the five introduced smoke-free sections.
0:51:12 > 0:51:18Absolutely the next day. There were so bowled over by the results we had.
0:51:18 > 0:51:21But nobody had ever asked the non-smokers.
0:51:23 > 0:51:27The smoker could no longer be sure of its habitat.
0:51:27 > 0:51:30Once a small cell of activists had their scent,
0:51:30 > 0:51:35the smoker would be herded into a new ecosystem for the first time.
0:51:36 > 0:51:41The designated smoking area, where they would be easily identified.
0:51:42 > 0:51:45But they had allies in the unlikeliest of places.
0:51:50 > 0:51:55Within two or three years of starting my activism, we had the chairman
0:51:55 > 0:52:00of the health authority come along to the Health Education Department.
0:52:00 > 0:52:03We'd never had a visit from the chairman in our life.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07And he came in and said, "I want you to stop all this smoking activity."
0:52:07 > 0:52:11Bristol depends on its wealth for the tobacco industry,
0:52:11 > 0:52:13and I want you to stop it.
0:52:13 > 0:52:15You can go into schools, that's all right.
0:52:15 > 0:52:17Give your talks in schools,
0:52:17 > 0:52:19but I want you to stop all this activism.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24Exactly that, it was the stuff that was hitting home.
0:52:24 > 0:52:26I said to him, "I think you're in the wrong job, mate,
0:52:26 > 0:52:29"if you think more of the wealth of the tobacco industry
0:52:29 > 0:52:33"than the health of the people you're paid to actually care for."
0:52:33 > 0:52:36And he said, "You'll regret that, woman."
0:52:36 > 0:52:39He did! He slammed shut his case and walked out.
0:52:39 > 0:52:42I thought, "I'm for the chop", but I did say,
0:52:42 > 0:52:45"You can't stop me doing it in my own time."
0:52:45 > 0:52:49# Something special happened today
0:52:49 > 0:52:53# I got green lights all the way
0:52:56 > 0:52:58# With no big red sign to stop me... #
0:52:58 > 0:53:02The New Inn has achieved notoriety by becoming
0:53:02 > 0:53:05the only non-smoking public house in the British Isles.
0:53:05 > 0:53:07You can drink yourself to death here if you like,
0:53:07 > 0:53:09but you wouldn't dare to light up.
0:53:09 > 0:53:13Landlord John Showers makes it perfectly plain
0:53:13 > 0:53:16that smoking in here is banned.
0:53:17 > 0:53:19# Floating high into the darkness
0:53:21 > 0:53:25# I hope I get there soon
0:53:25 > 0:53:28# There's so many things to do... #
0:53:28 > 0:53:30Today has been National No-Smoking Day,
0:53:30 > 0:53:34hard on the heels of the Chancellor's attack on cigarettes in the Budget.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41So, London Transport have just announced a permanent
0:53:41 > 0:53:44and total ban on smoking in all trains on the London Underground,
0:53:44 > 0:53:49and are to strengthen rules about no smoking areas on buses too.
0:53:50 > 0:53:54Just two weeks before a smoking ban comes into place,
0:53:54 > 0:53:57smokers there are being asked not to light up in their own homes
0:53:57 > 0:54:00if they're expecting a visit from the council.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05I refuse to use the expression "dying breed".
0:54:05 > 0:54:07Endangered species.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10You realise through the years
0:54:10 > 0:54:13that you are in a minority in any situation.
0:54:13 > 0:54:16You may find it an affront to your civil liberties,
0:54:16 > 0:54:18you may find it the perfect opportunity to give up.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22The ban on smoking in public in England comes into force this Sunday
0:54:22 > 0:54:25and we've been sparing a thought for those poor tobacco companies,
0:54:25 > 0:54:28yes, the one who depend on our addiction for their living.
0:54:31 > 0:54:34People are often very nice and accommodating if you say,
0:54:34 > 0:54:37"Can I, er...?" "Sure, sure."
0:54:37 > 0:54:42But you are the odd one out in any physical set-up.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49We've only got a couple of days
0:54:49 > 0:54:51before England goes smoke-free on Sunday.
0:54:51 > 0:54:56Anywhere you go, you are "the smoker", the token smoker.
0:54:56 > 0:54:59And you really notice this after a while.
0:54:59 > 0:55:00Tomorrow marks a year
0:55:00 > 0:55:03since the smoking ban was introduced in England,
0:55:03 > 0:55:05and it looks like it's had a real impact.
0:55:05 > 0:55:10400,000 smokers gave up the habit within the first nine months
0:55:10 > 0:55:13after the ban, and, as Catherine Marston reports,
0:55:13 > 0:55:17it's predicted that as many as 40,000 smoking-related deaths
0:55:17 > 0:55:19could be prevented over the next decade.
0:55:19 > 0:55:24We've become so de-tuned to it now, so sensitised, rather, to it,
0:55:24 > 0:55:26that if you go into a room...
0:55:26 > 0:55:30If I check into a hotel room, which are not supposed to,
0:55:30 > 0:55:32and I think, "Someone's been smoking in here",
0:55:32 > 0:55:34you ring down to reception straightaway.
0:55:34 > 0:55:38God, someone's been smoking in here! Can you get me another room?
0:55:38 > 0:55:42The simple difficulties now associated with smoking
0:55:42 > 0:55:46as a leisure activity and as a pastime, you can't
0:55:46 > 0:55:49smoke in most buildings, you can't smoke at football matches,
0:55:49 > 0:55:52you can't smoke in pubs, you can't smoke in restaurants.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55I would think, more than anything else,
0:55:55 > 0:55:59it's those sheer practicalities in that, there comes a point when
0:55:59 > 0:56:01all your mates are sat round in the pub
0:56:01 > 0:56:04and you have to stand at the back in the pouring rain to have a fag.
0:56:04 > 0:56:07And you think, "Know what? Shall I not do this any more?"
0:56:08 > 0:56:09You can't go into anyone's house.
0:56:09 > 0:56:11Smoking in someone's house now,
0:56:11 > 0:56:13it would be like shooting up in someone's house.
0:56:13 > 0:56:15If you went into any English person's house
0:56:15 > 0:56:17and took out a fag and lit up, can you imagine?
0:56:17 > 0:56:20It would be like, "My God, what do you think you're doing?"
0:56:25 > 0:56:27Everyone's got the right to go to hell in their own way,
0:56:27 > 0:56:30but it seems now that that process has gone
0:56:30 > 0:56:34from the sort of thing that the Archbishop of Canterbury did
0:56:34 > 0:56:37and the Queen did, to something that is so kind of wretched,
0:56:37 > 0:56:39and people have to apologise for.
0:56:41 > 0:56:44# Something special happened today. #
0:56:56 > 0:56:58The Smoker.
0:56:58 > 0:57:00A breed for so long favoured
0:57:00 > 0:57:03and catered to by society is now being hounded.
0:57:07 > 0:57:11Forbidden to display the traits for which it was celebrated,
0:57:11 > 0:57:13as the singular animal amongst the herd,
0:57:13 > 0:57:19the smoker today is a diminished, anguished, exhausted creature.
0:57:26 > 0:57:31A culture once shockingly in love with the American Leaf
0:57:31 > 0:57:32is fading away.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38It's lost aroma too nostalgic for some,
0:57:38 > 0:57:39too acrid for most.
0:57:41 > 0:57:43Profitable for the few.
0:57:45 > 0:57:48The smoker is a truly endangered species.
0:57:48 > 0:57:55Yet it seems to be accepting its fate to live in a smoke-free world.
0:58:26 > 0:58:28Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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