SMOKING

At the time of writing I have been a smoker of one sort or another for 29 years and a pipesmoker for 26 years. In that time I have seen the status of smoking in the public mind go from a tolerated habit enjoyed by many to a scapegoat derided as the cause of any health problem the medical profession fail to understand.

I do not expect much sense from doctors; I have met too many of them for that. They are treated with such reverence by their patients that many of them come to believe in their own infallibility. However, I see no reason not to challenge their superstitions and try to restore tobacco to its rightful place as one of the great joys of civilised life.

This part of the site is also my way of honouring Nat Chait (1924-1997). In 1980, in a position to retire early if he so wished, Nat chose instead to open a pipe shop in Hill Rise, Richmond. Within days of its opening, I wandered in, sixteen years old, full of adolescent angst and a puzzle to myself. Not knowing quite what to make of me, Nat nonetheless put up with my nonsense and we became friends. The shop, which was a vibrant celebration of tobacco in general and pipes in particular, became the background to all the important adentures of my early adult life. Meanwhile Nat became something of a father figure, my real father having died a year earlier. His great kindness to young people and his unswerving independence made him a natural for this role. At a time when I was apt to despair of life in general, he showed me by example that something can be done with a life and saw me through the best and the worst results of my early attempts to do so.

If being an Englishman still means something other than tribal bunk, Nat was a living embodiment of it - a scholar, a gentleman and a truly great tobacconist.