It doesn’t seem that harmful – the odd cigarette at a party. Except perhaps we’re a bit too complacent…
It was the sunshine that did it. Something about the warm summer afternoon, a buzz of conversation in the air and the prospect of an evening with friends in the garden ahead sent me into the newsagents to come out with something I haven’t bought for a good 15 years or so: a packet of cigarettes.
Or rather, a packet of tobacco, some rolling papers and a lighter – because something about the prospect of a cigarette felt far less transgressive if it was a roll-your-own number. I was never a heavy smoker.
Social smoking, mostly – nights out with friends at university and in my 20s; out to dinner, in the days when people still considered it acceptable to smoke indoors and light up after the cheese course.
I stopped when I had children, didn’t smoke at all for years, even as my husband carried on with me begging him to stop. Then he quit completely and I found myself having the odd party fag – maybe one or two a year, max. Until that evening a couple of months ago and my illicit purchase.