Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Yesterday they banned all sight of cigarettes. Shops will be denuded of the vast and colourful panoply behind the counter, a long way away from the time when cigarettes really took a hold in England being popular with the soldiers who brought them back after the Crimean war.

In the Great War cigarettes were sent to the troops in tins at Christmas. The tin which we have is the standard issue. In November 1914 a fund was set up to provide a Christmas gift for the troops. It was done under the auspices or trust of the young princess Mary the daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. The aim was to provide a Christmas gift for all serving members of the forces. The response was overwhelming and so much money was collected that a brass tin was designed and made which bore an impression of Princess Mary's head with a scrolled M on either side. This tin was filled with a lighter, some light tobacco and a small packet of cigarettes.

A famous music hall song of the day: Pack Up Your Troubles became a morale boosting marching song of the troops. It featured a line,
While you've a lucifer to light you fag,
Smile boys that's the style.

The lucifer was a type of match sold by children in the street at the time. Of course the name, meaning bearer of light from the Latin, was, in the Christian tradition the name given to the fallen angel. So did the bearer of light, having fallen from grace became The Dark Lord.

Staying on the war theme, a poem of WW II ; All Day It Has Rained by Alun Lewis, features the line
"All day it has rained and we on the edge of the moors
Have sprawled in our bell tents moody dull as boors
...................smoking a woodbine, darning dirty socks.

The woodbine was the Wild Woodbine cigarette made by WD&HO Wills in Bristol. Bristol was one of the first ports to receive tobacco leaves from the colonies and was the leading port engaged in the slave triangle, receiving rum sugar and tobacco. It remained so until Liverpool took the title at the end of the 18th century. Wills was engaged in the tobacco and snuff trade from the 1870s.

The first cigarette made by Wills was the the Bristol brand, closely followed by the oval “ Passing Clouds” in their distinctive illustrated pink packet with a picture of a contented cavalier puffing away. The Three Castles, the next in line unashamedly featured a sailing ship in dock with a relaxing tricorn hatted sailor to one side. The ship was too small to be a slaver and bore the name "Young Rachel". What could be further from the truth? Wills other brands with a nautical theme were Capstan Medium and Capstan full strength. There was also Gold Flake, hearking back to the Gold Virginia leaf.

The other maker of cigarettes in England was John Players. They also had a nautical touch with their Players Navy Cut and they were made in the Castle Tobacco Factory in Nottingham. They were the first to sell packaged tobacco, rather than loose. Their Players No I cigarette was sold by weight when it was first introduced and so later they were named Players Weights. It was a smaller cigarette like the Wills Woodbine, Gallahers Park Drive and Ogdens Robin. I think Ogden was linked to Churchman in some way. It is but a vague memory.

Many cigarettes were sold in flimsy packets and to stiffen the packet a card was inserted. These cards were then illustrated and produced in sets. These became very collectible and were a distinctive selling point stiffening and advertising very effectively. Today these cigarette cards are still collectable and originals from the 1920s can command prices of £300 or more per set of 50 or 100 cards. In fact this subject is vast and would be worthy of a further post if I was so interested.
The first sets of cards were issued in the 1830s by Wills. Originals from the late 1800s command a price in excess of £700.

Returning to poetry and song, I referred last time to Robbie Burns
My Mary's asleep by the murmuring stream.
The stream being Sweet Afton, a brand name of Carrols. The brand was then purchased by Wills. The larger cigarette from this stable was Afton Major.

Following on from the stable clue we reach Turf. The packet arrived-with the emblem of the Flying Horse the motto (now called a tag line) "The Quality Wins”. The company was formed by Don Jose Carreras Ferrer, a Spanish nobleman. He supplied tobacco to the Prince of Wales and the third Earl of Craven, after whom he named his Craven Mixture. J M Barrie referred to his love of smoking in "My Lady Nicotine A Study in Smoke. There was a link here to Craven Mixture and Carreras used J M Barrie as an advertising ploy. Outside the Carreras Arcadia factory in Mornington Crescent London , built in the Egyptian style were two representations, in bronze of the Egyptian god Bastat: a black cat. Thus came the black cat on the red packet of Craven A cigarettes. The company was later taken over by Rothmans of Pall Mall. These are just a few of the stories in the cigarette narrative.

Today all these brands form a kind of family tree to the three main manufacturers : British American Tobacco; Imperial Tobacco and Phillip Morris Inc. There are many other stories. No doubt someone has, is or will be writing a Phd thesis on the rise and fall of the cigarette. The tobacco companies are still prospering even though the sales have seriously declined in the UK and North America. Asia is a growth market and is being developed.

Cigareets and whisky and wild,wild women
They drive a man crazy
They drive him insane
Or just
Smoke gets in your eyes.

JL April 7 13:24
And many more ditties to the cigarette.