Guernsey - don’t mention the war!

Guernsey is to consider extending smoking bans to beaches and other outdoor areas, as well as raising the age of sale of tobacco.

According to the BBC:

Smoking bans on beaches, public parks and children's playgrounds are among the ideas the public has been asked to comment on, as part of a public survey launched by the Health Improvement Commission (HIC).

On Thursday I was asked by BBC Radio Guernsey to respond to the story, which I did on the breakfast programme, and a soundbite from the interview (which was recorded on Zoom) was later used on Channel Island News, the local evening news on BBC1.

It reminded me that 20 years ago I flew to Guernsey to support a local campaign, Support Our Smokers (SOS), that had been set up by a local hotelier to fight calls to ban smoking in enclosed public places.

His name was Paul Leigh and he was particularly worried about smoking being banned in pubs and bars. He therefore contacted Forest to ask if we would provide a speaker to take part in a meeting he had organised.

I had never been to any one of the Channel Islands so I jumped at the chance.

I’m not the world’s best flyer so initially I investigated getting the ferry from Poole (three hours) or Portsmouth (seven hours), but in the end I bit the bullet and flew to Guernsey from Gatwick on a twin-propellor plane operated by Aurigny, the state-owned Guernsey airline that had been nationalised a year or two earlier.

(As an aside, Wikipedia records that ‘In 1977, Aurigny banned smoking on all services, the first ever airline to do so’.)

Paul met me at the airport and took me to his bar/hotel where he had offered to put me up for a couple of nights. He also gave me a tour of the island.

It’s a bit of a blur now but I remember visiting St Peter Port, the main town, driving along the coastal road, and taking a detour through one of the residential areas where some of the richest people on the island live.

The meeting took place at another hotel and was attended by several other licensees and members of the public opposed to a smoking ban.

I don’t remember much about it apart from the fact that I was introduced and treated like a minor celebrity, which is the first and only time that has ever happened to me.

I’m not sure I lived up to my star billing but if they were disappointed they hid it well. On the whole, I think they were just pleased that someone from the UK had taken the trouble to come and back their campaign.

In the end, of course, the outcome (a public smoking ban) was the same as everywhere else, but it did strike me as ironic that an island that 60 years earlier had been liberated from the Nazis had now succumbed to another form of fascism - health fascism.

Not that I actually said that, because it may have been in bad taste as well as a wild exaggeration, but it was what I was thinking!

Nevertheless, in September 2018, in another interview on BBC Radio Guernsey, I did hint at the connection when I told presenter Jenny Kendall-Tobias:

I think Germany is quite a good example of a nation, possibly for historical reasons, that does not want to appear to be too oppressive in its lifestyle regulations. In Germany of course they actually have smoking lounges in airports. They are well ventilated, they are not smoky because they've got the latest state of the art ventilation, and that seems to be a very good compromise. Also in Germany, not in every state but in some states, and in Berlin for example, you'll still find some bars where you're allowed to smoke and again that seems to me a reasonable compromise.

We are not asking for people to be able to light up whenever or wherever they want. Those days are gone and we wouldn’t expect a return to that, but we don't see why you should not be allowed to have smoking rooms in bars if the owner decided that it was a good thing for his business. What you will actually find is that very few bars and restaurants would allow smoking but at least there will be some element of choice. At the moment I think Germany is quite a good example of a country that gets the balance right.

That interview was in response to a previous call to ban smoking in outdoor public places. For the full transcript of the 24-minute interview click here.

Below: Channel Island News, July 4, 2024

Comments

[Rose2]

Simon you are quite right of course.

Guernsey
From 2010

A unique way of showing rebellion during the Occupation

"Richard Heaume, the director of the German Occupation Museum said: "If you couldn't get food cigarettes were the next most important thing because they reduced the hunger level."
So with an island on the brink of starvation Hugh's homemade cigarettes provided a form of relief for islanders."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/guernsey/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8558000/8558130.stm