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Piping up for the forgotten smokers

Sunday Herald, The, Jan 14, 2001 by Susan Flockhart

From Einstein to Sartre, Bilbo Baggins to Sherlock Holmes, pipe- smoking once brought pleasure to men - and women - across the globe. But now, with less than 1% of the UK indulging, this most enigmatic of pastimes is looking decidedly unhealthy. Can Robbie Williams save it? Susan Flockhart finds out

IN an era dominated by speed, frenzy and panic, the pipe- smoker is an oasis of calm. There he sits, puffing gently amid a cloud of aromatic smoke while the crazy, deadline-crunching world explodes around him. Unlike the cigarette smoker, who draws needily upon the commercially packaged weed, the pipe man takes things slowly, lingering over the rituals of cleaning, filling, tamping. And, when the World Pipe-Smoking Championships take place at Ascot this autumn, the winner will be the one who manages to keep his single ounce of tobacco burning long after all the others have fizzled out.

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"Smoking a pipe has a very calming effect," says eminent Glasgow QC Donald Findlay. "Even as a boy, I thought people looked kind of contented when they smoked." Never one to procrastinate, the 15-year- old Findlay seized his chance during a morning walk with his father. "I said, 'I'm thinking of taking up smoking.' My father never said a word - just took me to a tobacconist's and bought me a Plumb pipe, two ounces of tobacco and a box of Swan Vestas matches, thinking, no doubt, that he'd get the lot back by lunchtime." He was mistaken. Far from turning green at the gills, young Findlay took to the weed at once. Every day since (except in the year when he gave up for a bet) he has smoked an ounce of Tam O'Shanter - the brand favoured by his father and grandfather.

But Findlay, who turns 50 this year, is one of a dying breed. Pipe- smoking can be traced to the ancient Celts, who smoked aromatic herbs in clay pipes. The art was refined by the native Americans, who produced a smokable form of tobacco, and popularised by Sir Walter Raleigh. During the 20th century, however, the pursuit took a bashing from what pipe-smoking guru Richard Carleton Hacker terms "the devil weed" - the cigarette. Hacker, author of eight books on pipe- smoking, speaks nostalgically of the heyday of his beloved pipe. During the 1940s and 50s, he says, pipes were perceived as very sophisticated and chic. (Think Albert Camus; think Jean-Paul Sartre.) But since the 70s it has been all downhill. Whether this is due to what Hacker terms "aggravated assaults by militant anti-smokers" or simply to the accelerating pace of modern life, the fact remains that only half a million people in the UK smoke pipes. They make up 2% of British males but most are well past middle youth.

The decline is not mourned by anti-smoking campaigners Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). Research manager Amanda Sandford refuses to fret over the upcoming Pipe-Smoker of the Year award, an event run by the Pipe-smokers' Council. "There are so few of them, it's not worth making a fuss. They know it's dying out."

Historian Magnus Magnusson, Pipe-Smoker of the Year in 1978, believes the event is "a piece of nonsense, designed to promote the pipe-smoking industry. Winning it didn't mean a darned thing. Now, if I'd won a supply of tobacco, that would have been worthwhile."

Unlike Findlay (who owns 300 pipes), Magnusson is not a collector, although he does possess a fine ornamental specimen carved in the shape of his own face. "The grandchildren love the idea that I'm smoking myself." He carries a spare pipe for emergencies and admits to suffering from "pipe rage" when he is in a place where he can't smoke. As a result, he rarely takes long flights and gets irritated by the vogue for discouraging smoking in public places. "Soon we won't even be allowed to smoke on the pavement and I'll become a hermit in my own house," he mutters.

Magnusson took up the pipe 40 years ago "to get me off cigarettes". But he knows the pursuit is not without health risks, including throat and mouth cancers. The lung-cancer rate is, however, lower than among cigarette-smokers. Pipe-smokers rarely inhale, as the nicotine is absorbed directly into the bloodstream from the mouth. "That's why we can stop for weeks at a time or when we have a cold or sinus attack," says Hacker. "Personally, I can't stand cigarettes - too many chemicals. Pipe tobacco is pure leaf."

Actually, Hacker - a fortysomething collector who owns 2000 pipes - insists that pipe-smoking in the US is enjoying a slight resurgence among 21 to 35-year-olds. This side of the Atlantic, there have been a few reports of younger celebrities, including Robbie Williams and Chris Evans, toying with the habit. Kate Neill, of the Pipesmokers' Council, even suggests that "it could be the next cult thing". A pipe dream, perhaps. For the most part, the great names in pipe-smoking are icons of the past - Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Harold Wilson and JRR Tolkien, who once said: "Every morning I wake up and think, good, another 24 hours' pipe-smoking."

Piping up for the forgotten smokers

Sunday Herald, The, Jan 14, 2001 by Susan Flockhart

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