Last April I received the following email:
Dear Simon,
I'm working on a BBC Four television documentary using lots of archive and interviews to tell a narrative of British culture and our relationship with smoking over the years. I very much want it to reflect on the past and to bring up to date the changes that have all had an impact on the smoking public and where it goes from here.
It's not an anti-smoking film but a balanced and nostalgic look on a Britain that embraced the cigarette as a patriotic necessity and found it cool to smoke. We want to explore the science, politics and cultural changes over the 20th century that has directly impacted smoking.
I'd very much like to talk to you about the programme.
Kind regards,
I rang back and we had a long chat. The programme, I was told, is part of a series called Timeshift. I raised the civil liberties aspect and the issue of passive smoking, explaining that this was the reason why smokers have been increasingly victimised and isolated.
I added that the media had shown little interest in questioning the 'facts' so I suggested that she should speak to Joe Jackson. (I think I sent her a copy of Joe's seminal essay, The Smoking Issue).
I suggested one or two other people they might interview. (David Hockney was one.) I also recommended that they film on the smoking terrace at Boisdale where they could speak to ordinary people who enjoy smoking, but heard nothing more.
Tonight Timeshift: The Smoking Years is broadcast on BBC4 at 9.00pm. According to the BBC website:
Timeshift reveals the story of the creature that is 'the smoker'. How did this species arrive on our shores? Why did it become so sexy - and so dominant in our lives? Was there really a time when everywhere people could be found shrouded in a thick blue cloud?
Enlisting the help of Barry Cryer, Stuart Maconie and others, The Smoking Years tells the unnatural history of a quite remarkable - and now threatened - creature.
Barry Cryer and Stuart Maconie?! Cryer is a smoker but don't expect a spirited defence of tobacco. He's far more likely to tell a self-deprecating joke. Maconie is a ubiquitous talking head who has made a career appearing on programmes that require no more than the briefest of shallow soundbites.
As for the "others", the alarm bells started ringing as soon as I read the Radio Times preview:
It’s odd to recall how, 30-odd years ago, smokers were free to puff away on buses, in offices, cinemas and restaurants. Here’s the story of the rise and fall of smoking in a lively, entertaining documentary full of surprising snippets. Most interesting [my emphasis] is campaigner Cecilia Farren, who tells how she first put smokers on the retreat, and heading for the designated area.
Would that, by any chance, be the Cecilia Farren who once accused the tobacco industry of a "terror campaign" and, on another occasion, attempted to 'name and shame' me at a tobacco control conference in Edinburgh?
Farren is also the founder of GASP, "your one-stop shop for stop smoking, smokefree and tobacco education resources".
Can't wait to hear what she has to say and who (if anyone) takes issue with her comments. This, however, is the BBC so I won't be holding my breath.