Smoke gets in your eyes - No longer!!!

Two days ago, Wales became the latest country in the United Kingdom to impose a full smoking ban in all public places. Scotland has been smoke free since March 26th 2006 and Northern Ireland will follow suit on April 30th. Good old kipper-lungs England, coughing along behind, finally makes up the entire complement on July 1st.

While the remainder of the UK seemed to move to such a ban effortlessly, the English were dragged kicking and screaming, mainly because the Blair government was frightened to impose a blanket ban and only did so when a free vote of M.P.'s voted resoundingly to overthrow the government's meek and ridiculous half measure of banning smoking in part of a premises as 'unworkable'. Of course it was but so are many of Mr.Blair's other initiatives so no wonder he didn't spot it!

I have resolved, once the ban comes into force, to march up to my local village pub on July 1st, order lunch and stay there all afternoon just basking in the fresher air. They say that former smokers become more Catholic than the Pope and that is certainly true in my case.

Until I was about forty, I smoked twenty cigarettes a day and lived the old joke 'it's easy to give up - I've done it hundreds of times' with tiresome frequency. I used to silently resent my friends and co-workers who didn't smoke and who objected to my smoking in their houses, cars etc because 'you have no idea what a residue it leaves and won't go away'. What a fussy, prissy lot I used to think, gasping for a fag, they're making a fuss over nothing.




Then I ruptured my Achilles tendon playing squash and was wrapped in plaster from foot to thigh for weeks. I couldn't go out anywhere much and I became so bored that my smoking increased from 20 to 60 a day. Eventually I realised that I was no longer enjoying smoking, I was simply indulging an ever worsening habit and (I thought) with great courage, resolved to stop immediately. To prove my intent I threw 200 cigarettes down the rubbish chute and finally stopped smoking for good.

Now, after all these years, I am probably worse than the friends I used to silently curse. I won't tolerate smoking in my apartment or in my car. I avoid pubs and restaurants where there is no smoke-free reserved section and my throat seems to have become very sensitive to cigarette smoke.

Now I know the misery my friends and colleagues used to go through every time I lit up in their presence. It's hideous, foul and revolting - like someone lighting a small fire in your living room determined to smoke you out.

That's why, although I used to be a smoker, I have no time for the whines and moans of those who say that a smoking ban inhibits their freedom. The dangers of passive smoking have been clearly demonstrated medically and you only have to sit in a room full of smokers to know what it does to your chest and throat.

That's why I shall celebrate in what is normally a smoky pub on July 1st when poor old England finally limps home behind everyone else, because I think this measure, like the measure years ago that stopped factory smoke from polluting the atmosphere, could make live so much more pleasant - and healthy - for millions.