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I started smoking at age eighteen. By the age of twenty-eight I smoked sixty a day but did not have the will to give up, nor even to cut down.
I had lodgings in a house on a fairly steep hill. One day on the way home from work I had to pause for a rest halfway. An old lady carrying two bags of heavy shopping passed me as I stood there gasping for breath. She gave me a long look, shook her head and walked on.
Realizing that I was less fit at twenty-eight than a woman of eighty I convinced myself that I must give it up. Next day in an empty compartment on the train to work - 10 May 1972 - I had one last cigarette, swore that I would never smoke again, then lowered the window and tossed all my smoker's requisites to the winds. I used snuff and countless tablets of a sweet known as "Victory V" until eventually after about a month I finally conquered the craving.
Now at age seventy-five I do have a mild bronchial condition, nothing serious, only mild chest pain in very cold weather or when walking uphill which the doctor attributes to smoking. Fortunately it doesn't affect me in the summer, nor in some areas of the country where the air is dry. On a recent check-up the doctor told me how lucky I was to have had the will to give up smoking forty-seven years ago - and survive.
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