Recently in our small town we had a dispute on road names on a new housing estate.  The new estate is next to the cemetery where airmen from the Commonwealth, particularly Canada, died from injuries whilst helping to protect our shores.  They were stationed at local airfields and many residents deemed it right that the roads be named after them.

The ‘almight’ Town Council wanted to name them differently, something so inane I can’t remember what they were now.  Said council were extremely put out when the District Council sided with residents and the roads are being named after these valant airmen.

Still, the town council have shown their true colours in objecting and their complete contempt for the people they are supposed to represent, just as main government have.  Many of the council, if not born before or during the 2nd World War, were born not long after, but how soon they forget.

I wasn’t born until the 50′s but my grandad used to tell me about the wars, he served in the 1st and was involved in the 2nd, although too old for active service.  His brother also joined up for the 1st World War, despite being under age!

It makes me very bitter that so many gave their lives, freely, just to be forgotten after such a relatively short time.

There is a pub, which still passes for the description in our old market town; it has beer mats, last time I looked – through the windows – in the design of RAF roundels. In our county there were many airfields and I remember seeing on the walls of one hostelry here, the faded black and white, wartime pictures of aircrews from the time, smiling into the camera… If a time machine were to bring them 70 years forward until now I wonder what they would make of the fact that while their tankards rest on those beer mats they must go outside for their Players, Weights, Woodbines and Senior Service. It’s an irony that I think few would even recognise today.

However, the solution is really very simple – have smoking venues and non smoking venues.  I am not in favour of separate smoking rooms, it is still too easy for the antis to rise up in horror and declare they could smell a bit of smoke coming under the door!

By having completely separate venues then those who choose to enter a smoking venue do so with the full acceptance that people inside will be smoking; those entering a non smoking venue will do so with the full understanding that no-one will be smoking and, if you happen to be a smoker, you have accepted, by entering such a place, that you will not be allowed to smoke.

Problem solved for all.  After all, the issue of staff is no real hurdle as there are plenty of smokers who would be glad of the jobs, to start with, all of those who lost their jobs when the pub or club they worked in closed after the ban due to lack of trade!

I do agree that things would be so much better if the pendulum stopped in the middle and we could all return to allowing the individuals that we are to  live and let live.  It is a crying shame that the lessons of tolerance towards our neighbours and the looking out for each other after the 2 Great Wars is now lost in the nanny state where instead people ‘snitch’ on each other for the pettiest of things.

It is also very sad and abhorrant that those that gave their lives and their health to fight for our freedom are thought so little of now by recent governments that they are happy to forget the sacrifices made and cast democracy aside in their quest to micromanage every part of our lives.

She said she got fed up with always being left sitting inside looking after all the drinks whilst her friends and family were outside smoking and having a good old laugh and chinwag.  She decided that if she couldn’t beat them, she would join them.  As you say, she then gave a cigarette a try and that led to another and now she smokes around 20 a day!

Brilliant tactic by the government, don’t you think?

My other thought with the smoking ban was that perhaps it had to do with the government being in dire straights with regard to paying pensions.  People who have smoked all their lives, particularly once they reach their twilight years, often – it seems to me – die within a year when they give up smoking.  This would relieve the pressure somewhat on the pension fund.  If they didn’t give up then presumably government hoped they would die of pneumonia contracted by being shut outside in the freezing weather in order to enjoy their little pleasure. 

Just a thought!