No Smoking Day, a shadow of its former self

You may have read this before. If so, look away now.

Today is No Smoking Day. Now in its 31st year, it's a pale shadow of what it used to be.

When I joined Forest my predecessor assured me that, media wise, No Smoking Day and the Budget were our busiest days by far.

It's hard to imagine now but No Smoking Day was a very big deal. The Budget was significant too because successive chancellors (Ken Clarke and Gordon Brown) had introduced a tobacco escalator that caused tobacco taxation to soar and each year Forest was invited to comment on what was perceived to be another hammer blow for smokers.

The fact that No Smoking Day and the Budget took place within a week of each other and sometimes on consecutive days made it quite an intense period.

This was true for a few more years but the sheer volume of anti-smoking initiatives including campaigns to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship, prohibit smoking in public places, introduce graphic images, outlaw vending machine and ban the display of tobacco in shops – all these things took the edge off No Smoking Day. As I liked to say, "Every day is no smoking day."

It still gets its share of coverage regionally but the days when it dominated the national media are long gone.

Traditionally, in addition to all the anti-smoking messages, there would be a picture of members of the Lords and Commons Pipe and Cigar Club on the front page of the Telegraph and other broadsheets.

Frankly I never thought it was the greatest advertisement because they all seemed so ... old. Alive, but old (which I guess is an achievement).

And they were smoking Meershaum briars or Cuban cigars with not a cigarette in sight so they were hardly representative of your average smoker.

Anyway, that first year at Forest I was determined to do something different so we came up with the idea of spending the day in Paris.

The concept was we were fugitives from the No Smoking police and we wanted to escape to what was then the European capital of smoking.

So we invited about a dozen people to join us and the group set off at 8.00am from the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo.

I remember the moment very well partly because I didn't go! I had to stay in London to coordinate all the media enquiries, and there were a lot, but I nevertheless went to Waterloo to see them off.

On board (Eurostar had a smoking coach in those days) my colleague Juliette Torres conducted a series of interviews with various radio stations and the party continued all the way to Paris.

In fact, that's when it really began because we had arranged for them to have lunch with our counterparts in France who took them to a restaurant used by the Resistance during the war. Perfect.

The group was accompanied by Daily Record features writer Bob Shields (plus photographer) and somewhere I have a fantastically atmospheric photograph of Bob and Juliette lighting a cigarette with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

The following year we organised a 'Smoker-Friendly Fry-Up' at Simpson's in the Strand – the Evening Standard's Pete Clark was a guest – but since then No Smoking Day has gradually lost its mojo.

I've done a couple of interviews this morning – BBC Radio WM and BBC Radio Nottingham with BBC Radio Northampton to come – but neither was about No Smoking Day.

In fact, Paul Hooper (regional tobacco policy manager West Midlands, Department of Health) had to mention it was No Smoking Day because the presenter sure as hell didn't!

If I was in charge of No Smoking Day I would consider that to be a monumental failure.

PS. The Budget became less of an event for Forest when Gordon Brown abandoned the tobacco escalator because it was fuelling the black market.

We remain though in a state of high alert in case any chancellor is silly enough to reintroduce it – hence my interview this morning on BBC Radio WM which was in response to a 'study' that suggests that 100,000 people would quit smoking if the price of cigarettes was increased by 45p.