Smoking on the Underground/Overground

drivers certainly smoked in their cabs, you could often smell it even though the first car was a no-smoking, as it wafted past the J door. On the 62TS the smoking cars had distinctly nicotine-stained ceilings!

Perhaps someone would care to explain how it is that:-

(a) There are many people in their 70's and 80's who have smoked for their entire adult life but remain in good health
(b) Many people fall victim to lung cancer who have never touched a cigarette and come from a non-smoking household

I have been a 20-a-day guy for many years but was recently required to have a full medical. I am in excellent health.

If the government are "so convinced" that smoking is dangerous - to the point of banning it in public place - then why are they happily making money from smokers. Bloody hypocrites

Charleyfarley
The answer to (a) and (b) is the same.
It's down to statistical relationship rather than a strict causal link.
If you smoke,you are MORE LIKELY to get lung cancer than if you don't.
Everyone will know an old geezer in his 80s who smokes every day.This does not invalidate the statistics,but represents the relatively unlikely end of the spectrum.
And smoking is not the only cause of lung cancer...asbestos,pollution,loads of other causes,as well as a strong genetic component,contribute to getting lung cancer (of which there are several different sorts).
To give a frinstance as to how lung cancer has many potential triggers,my own granddad smoked from the age of 12 till he gave up at the age of 70.At 77 he died of mesothelioma,apparently not due to smoking but due to asbestos inhaled during his work in the building trade.
And yes....the Government does tend to compromise its stance on smoking as soon as taxation is brought into the argument...

Because the only certainty in life is DEATH, an inevitability which is unavoidable.

I was a 40 a day man for 25 years before giving it up not for health reasons but to save the money which was around £130 per month at the time and a not inconsiderable sum. I agree that the governments are hypocrites because the evidence against tobacco is overwhelming. Ironically the consultants tell me that my giving up smoking was the catalyst for my becoming a diabetic 11 years ago, of course it didn't help that my father was a diabetic. My mother and her father both were smokers and my grandfather was gassed in the trenches in France in WW1 and given 6 weeks to live but he managed to live to be 80. They both suffered bowel cancer late in life, in their 70s, mine was diagnosed almost 2 years ago when I was 58 and treated last year.
Perhaps I was unlucky but who knows, I am well aware of the many hazardous carcinogenic materials and substances that I worked with at LUL and before that in my days as a telephone engineer and I have since discovered that so many of my family have suffered and died from cancers and untreated diabetes. I may never have become a smoker or a drinker had I known the family health history as a teenager but I cannot say. My father was the second youngest of seven siblings the eldest of whom in their 80s and 90s were still living when he died at 71. All his life he was neither a drinker nor a smoker but he did have a sweet tooth and it was perhaps inevitable that he became a diabetic in his 50s.
I am the eldest of four, my brother died in the early 1960s aged 2, my youngest sister 13 years younger than me has already had a breast cancer scare and the other one suffers varicose veins just as my father did. Her battle has been kidney problems ever since she was born and that is in the family history too.

My take on all this is that it comes down to risk, it isn't just what we do ourselves but also what our forbears did that will determine how healthy we are.

Smoking is bad for much more than the lungs and will exacerbate other conditions if they develop. In my eighth year of retirement I am glad that I stopped working at 52, I'm sure I wouldn't be here today had I remained at work and living in London. As it is I am hoping to avoid the problems that beset my father's last few years, stroke and amputation which undoubtedly hastened his end. That said I have really seen myself on 'death row' since 2001, I was told then that I was lucky to still be around. In 2011 the message from the consultant following a sigmoidoscopy was simply "you have two months to live without treatment" and the chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and recovery have taken more than a year and left me less fit.
On the positive side I have regular checkups at the local surgery and the hospital and in some respects am probably much healthier than all those lucky people who will drop dead tomorrow without ever knowing that they were ill! Also I don't worry about much these days, my career was my life and I chose to enjoy some years in retirement rather than die 'in harness' as so many of my former colleagues did, indeed the death of a close colleague who collapsed and died while at work, aged just 47, was what made my mind up though he was one of so many 'young' fatalities from health issues.

If you are a smoker, stop kidding yourself that it won't happen to you, I used to say the same because my mother's grandmother smoked all her life and lived to be 97 but she was obviously from much healthier stock!

Far be it from me to defend the present governement but how on earth are they "bloody hypocrites"?

People have the choice of whether to smoke or not and those that do can no longer inflict their filthy habit on those that don't, seems reasonable enough to me?

Anyway getting back to the original point I recall the tracks at many stations being littered with fag buts.

I remember smoking was allowed on the top deck of buses, and there would always be a smoking carriage on trains. I don't remember it on the Underground but I do remember smoking on Earls Court station in the open air in about 1994. I didn't realise smoking wasn't allowed anywhere; I'd only been living in London about 2 months. No-one told me off.

Anyway there always used to be a great camaraderie on the smoking carriages on trains, in fact I met a partner on one, coming back from college every day (about 1991). I don't remember the smell or litter or anything; not because I'm viewing through rose-tinted specs but simply because whatever was there was obviously so normal it never stuck in my head.

@stig - the basic difference between smoking and drinking is that - so far as I know - there is no such thing as passive drinking (if only!) - but well into the '70s in offices you had to sit next to people on 40 a day without complaint. Don't think it has done me any lasting harm fortunately, but then you couldn't complain and you'd go home with your clothes reeking of stale smoke. Ugh. Smokers really need to understand that those near to them (physically) think it's dangerous and anti social and actually makes one sick these days. What they do in the comfort of their own homes is their look out, and if they wish to waste a few grand a year for the opportunity to die a bit sooner, as a taxpayer, I'm happy with that...

GH

Yet again l find myself in 100% agreement with grahamhewett

Many people have caught lung cancer purely because of passive smoking - i.e., inhaling other people's toxic filth. Roy Castle is a famous example and there have been very many others.. Yet only 40 years ago people had to endure the whole working day cooped up in an office with a couple of 40 a day smokers, who refused to have a window open.

Yes when some UndergrounD cars were for non smokers, they had white ceilings whereas the smoking cars were turned into a horrid brown colour. And smokers still didn't realise that their own lungs would be worse. Smoking = a slow and expensive suicide in my book.

Thank you everyone for sharing their thoughts and views - I wish I was around to see these habits.

But am I right in thinking that 20 /25 years ago people would light up on a packed commuter train stuck in a tunnel for perhaps 5 minutes and nobody would bat an eyelid?

Also, these smoking carriages you talk about - how many to a train were there? Was it 1/2/3? or more even? And were they full or at least busier than a "non-smoking carriage"?

Forgive me but being only 19 I find it amazing people smoked underground and never thought - what am I breathing in?

Toby

I remember them from my younger days - it was very easy to spot the carriage as it came into the platform!

There are drivers who still smoke in cabs to this day - I have, from time to time, smelt the smoke wafting in through the gap in the J door.

I believe that it is a dismissable offence too.

Yes Charley, it's because you're a very, very lucky b*gger.........so far.... I gave up 25-a-day two and a bit years ago. Despite your's and my excellent health to date (I've been to the quack's as well), I'd lay odds we'll both go before our time as opposed to the have-never-smoked. Believe me, it makes sense doesn't it? Sure as eggs is eggs! Not to worry old son, as long as you've lived life to the full and enjoyed yourself, an early death from cigarettes is of little consequence.......

Smoking on the Central Line.................oh yes............North Acton to Woodford (1982-85). The smoking carriage was rammed full when other cars were empty. Marlboro toking addicts, including me.

All the fags put out and ground into the slatted floor of the 62s. Some still smoldering when I got off.

I reckon I usually got through 5 smokes on the journey! The worst offenders were the city boys. I recall having a blazing row with a pipe smoking banker (no rhyming slang intended) blowing smoke in my face at Bank. It ended up with my mate (smoking a cigar, and a non LUL employee) throwing him off the train to massive applause at Bethnal Green whilst I had a coughing fit and lit up another one.

"Nicotine"...ahhhhhh............Lou Reed should have renamed his magnum opus "Heroin" to reflect this. The most addictive substance known to man.

metman is correct, on 62TS, the Ts were smoking, any cars with a motor were not, quite easy to remember. Also meant that anything labelled 62 at the door was non-smoking, anything with 59 was.

Yes the same advice was given to signal lineman in training, when one is allowed just 10 minutes to determine the cause of a signal failure and just 15 minutes to determine that of a points failure the pressure is on and so taking a minute or two to think clearly was important to avoid going into 'headless chicken' mode and exacerbating a delay which could result in being disciplined and in the worst cases being 'dropped' to a lower grade for 6 months.

Smoking was advocated in the NHS too, my mother took up smoking as a 19 year old nursery nurse as advised by the matron in order to combat germs! Doctors and nurses were smokers then just like many of the population, it was simply the norm. Even in the 1980s my GP would sit behind his desk puffing his pipe while advising me that cigarettes were a bad habit!

When the 73 stock came into service circa 1978 we were working on the east end stage 1 resignalling and would smoke all the way from King's Cross to Cockfosters in the mornings to work in the temporary signal cabin relay room and in the afternoons it was smoking from Cockfosters all the way to Holborn on our way back to Whitechapel depot. After a few months the temporary depot at Arnos Grove opened which was handy for me being a North Londoner and living close to Oakwood. At the time my cigarette of choice was '555' at 43p for 20 with a 5p off next purchase voucher in every packet which I bought from the Newsagent/Tobacconist at Cockfosters.