• Contact
  • About
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
North East Bylines
  • Home
  • News
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Business
  • Region
  • Opinion
AUDIO
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Culture
  • Lifestyle
  • Business
  • Region
  • Opinion
No Result
View All Result
North East Bylines
Home News Health

I’m a smoker

Peter Lathan reflects on the process or starting to smoke, giving up smoking, but not really being an ex-smoker.

Peter LathanbyPeter Lathan
22-08-2021 01:19 - Updated On 07-04-2022 21:17
in Health, UK
Reading Time: 6 mins
A A
Photo by JESSICA TICOZZELLI from Pexels

Photo by JESSICA TICOZZELLI from Pexels

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

I started smoking when I was about 14 (1957 or thereabouts) and I smoked, more or less without interruption, until I was 71.

I say “more or less” because I did try to give up on a number occasions – once I lasted four days and then my wife threatened that she would sit on my chest, force a lit cigarette into my mouth and bounce up and down to make me inhale it if I didn’t give up giving up. We were young and fit in those days so she could certainly have done it! It appears I had become a bit short-tempered in those four days.

Me? Surely not?

Smoking a pipe?

Once, during the seventies, I thought I’d try smoking a pipe instead. Didn’t work – I’d smoke a pipeful of baccy and then want a cigarette! And, if I’m honest, I usually had one because I always had an emergency supply hidden away.

The thing is, everybody smoked in the fifties (except my parents – and they didn’t drink either.  Methodists. Need I say more?).

Smoking with the young doctor

For reasons which aren’t relevant, our doctors’ surgery was on the other side of the town from where we lived so, when I was 18+ (might have been a bit younger) and wanted to see the doc, I’d be at the end of the queue, because in those days, of course, there were no appointments; you simply turned up and were seen in order of arrival. I always used to see Young Dr Burn.

(I didn’t like Old Dr Burn, his father, because he made light of things. He once told me that the severe stomach pains I was experiencing were just “a little lost fart.” Score nil for bedside manner! Anyway, that’s not really relevant.)

I’d go in to see Young Dr Burn and he’d say, “So you’re the last, are you?” I’d agree that I was and he’d say, “Right. Let’s have a fag then.” He’d give me a cigarette and push the ashtray into the middle of his desk so we could both share it and the consultation would begin.

Giving up smoking

It was rather different twenty-odd years later when I was with a different Practice and we had one doctor who, if you went to him with a broken leg, would purse his lips and, almost wagging his finger like an old-fashioned school ma’am, would say, “Oh dear! You’ll have to give up smoking, you know.”

But I didn’t! In fact, I gave up giving up for many years, until 2014 to be precise. Then the issue forced itself upon me. It began with a friend, who had come to the theatre with me, saying, “The wheezing in your chest is almost as loud as the actors’ voices.”

That was just the start. There was much worse to follow: doing some drama work with recovering addicts (drugs and alcohol, not cigarettes!) in Darlington and not being able to keep up with my colleague Jill while walking up the slight hill from the carpark, with her chatting away and me gasping like an old steam train; having to set out from home early because of the amount of time it was taking me to walk from the Prince Bishop carpark in Durham up the long hill to the rehearsal room on Palace Green; in a panto rehearsal demonstrating to the Comic how I wanted a particular scene to run and ending up lying against the proscenium arch gasping for breath.

Time for action!

Saw the doctor (another one) and was diagnosed with COPD – emphysema and chronic bronchitis, no less, to add to my hypertension – and so, at 3pm on 17th December, 2014, there I was, outside the vape shop in Park Lane, Sunderland – smoking a cigarette, of course. I finished it, walked into the shop and bought a vape and a couple of bottles of liquid. None of your poncy menthol or rhubarb and custard flavours for me. Nope! Nicotine – in the strongest concentration they offered.

That cigarette was the last I ever smoked. Nearly seven years later I am still smoke-free. I am a non-smoker! In fact, I’ve even stopped vaping.

Brilliant, eh? Not so much will power, I have to say, as fear power! But whatever works for you.

Except…

Not an ex-smoker

Often after a meal I reach out to the place on the coffee table where, six years ago, the cigs and lighter sat permanently (unless they were in my pocket). Or I’ll feel in said pocket.

And I still dream that I’m “having a tab” and feeling really good. I really did enjoy smoking…

And I can smell cigarette smoke at 200 yards!

“I think somebody had a tab here an hour ago!”

No, I am definitely not an ex-smoker. It would take only one moment of weakness and I’d be back on 40 a day as I was in 2014.

I’m a smoker who is just not having cigarettes from moment to moment. From hour to hour. From day to day.

Sometimes it feels like from lifetime to lifetime. Well, you get the picture. I’ll just keep on keeping on.

Read more by Peter Lathan

Tags: Culture
Previous Post

Women’s detention centre: monthly protests

Next Post

Hundreds flock to wool fair in Weardale

Peter Lathan

Peter Lathan

Peter Lathan first appeared on stage in a school play at the age of 13 in 1956 when he played Marion in Sean O’Casey’s Cock-a-Doodle-Dandy. He first directed a play – Chekhov’s The Anniversary – in 1966. He has been involved in theatre ever since. He has taught Drama in schools, youth theatres and stage schools, whilst also running drama classes for recovering addicts and adults with severe learning disabilities. He has written more than 35 plays and directed over 70 from site-specific Shakespeare to touring pantos, from new writing to classic plays, from Theatre in Education to corporate productions. He is the author of It’s Behind You: The Story of Panto. He has been, variously, artistic director of theatre company KG Productions (2000 – 2016), chairman of the board of the Wearabout Theatre Company of Sunderland, and a Trustee of the Customs House in South Shields (9 years) and of No Limits Theatre Company, a professional company for adults with a learning disability In 2001 he founded the online British Theatre Guide which he edited for 11 years. He remains its North East editor.

Related Posts

NHS sign
Health

Fixing the NHS – in an ageing population

byDavid Taylor-Gooby
November 28, 2023
operation in hospital
Health

Healthcare, hospital detention, and human rights – an international problem

byDr Jayne Hamilton
November 27, 2023
Coeliac disease (gluten allergy)
Food & Drink

“We are so sorry to hear about this. We take allergies seriously”

byCarol Westall
November 24, 2023
Suella Cruella placard
Health

Power, tradition, hysteria, and manipulation: protest in “Remembrance Weekend”

byGareth Kearns
November 10, 2023
Freedom from Torture logo
Community

Interview with Helen Coyne from Freedom for Torture

byPeter Sagar
November 6, 2023
Next Post
Photo by Julie Ward

Hundreds flock to wool fair in Weardale

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR CROWDFUNDER

Subscribe to our newsletters
CHOOSE YOUR NEWS
Follow us on social media
CHOOSE YOUR PLATFORMS
Download our app
ALL OF BYLINES IN ONE PLACE
Subscribe to our gazette
CONTRIBUTE TO OUR SUSTAINABILITY
Make a monthly or one-off donation
DONATE NOW
Help us with our hosting costs
SIGN UP TO SITEGROUND
We are always looking for citizen journalists
WRITE FOR US
Volunteer as an editor, in a technical role, or on social media
VOLUNTEER FOR US
Something else?
GET IN TOUCH
Previous slide
Next slide

LATEST

National Servicemen Michael Jamieson

Last of the National Servicemen Part 3: Sent to Coventry

December 2, 2023
curriculum for the North

A new Curriculum for the North

December 2, 2023
David Lammy

Lammy’s mood music – sidestepping towards Rejoin?

December 2, 2023
bluebells

1,750 native bulbs and flowers to bring colour and to enhance wellbeing in Kenton

December 2, 2023
Palestinians and Israelis book by Michael Scott-Baumann

Book review: Palestinians and Israelis

December 1, 2023

December 1, 2023

MOST READ

Nestle Fawdon

New buyer for Fawdon Nestlé chocolate site

November 28, 2023
Photo by Fred Duval/Shutterstock.com (YW)

Cleverly and Stockton

November 27, 2023
Bollard in Geelong

What news from Geelong? The show goes on with Britishvolt

November 24, 2023 - Updated On November 27, 2023
Polling station

Proportional Representation vs First Past the Post

November 6, 2022 - Updated On May 23, 2023

BROWSE BY TAGS

Audio Beach Brexit Business castle leazes climate activism Co. Durham comedy cost of living crisis Culture defra democracy ducklings Economy Education Environment fire and rescue firefighter Food & Drink food poverty hardwick festival Health Health & Care Home Affairs just stop oil Lifestyle Local Lockdown Northumberland Peace peoples theatre Performance Politics pride month refugee rescue Science Teesside the good life TV & Radio Tynemouth Tyneside Ukraine volunteer Wearside

We are a not-for-profit citizen journalism publication. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in the North East and beyond.

North East Bylines is a trading brand of Bylines Network Limited, which is a partner organisation to Byline Times.

Learn more about us

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • Authors
  • Complaints
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Letters
  • Privacy
  • Network Map
  • Network RSS Feeds
  • Submission Guidelines

© 2023 North East Bylines. Powerful Citizen Journalism

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • UK News
    • Transport
    • World News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • Culture
    • Music
    • Poetry
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
  • Donate
  • Newsletter sign up
  • Boriiis Cartoons
  • Authors
  • Audio
CROWDFUNDER

© 2023 North East Bylines. Powerful Citizen Journalism

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In