When the Wills family started making cigarettes for the masses in Britain at the end of the 19th century, the new-fangled craze from America made everyone happy. Machine-made, the cigarettes were less pungent than pipes, cheaper than cigars and more convenient than their handmade precursors.
Everyone joined in. Doctors recommended smoking to calm the nerves, actors lit up on screen, politicians inhaled in cabinet, nurses and teachers all relaxed with one. My grandmother was on 40 a day.
It has taken us a century to make smoking unacceptable. For the first 50 years no one knew the lung cancer risks. I remember coming home on the Tube from school in the smoking carriage because it was less crowded. On planes families were seated at the