Piping up for the forgotten smokers

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jan 14, 2001 | by Susan Flockhart

Not among women, however. Clarissa Dickson Wright, a pipe-smoker in her younger days, narrowly missed being nominated for pipe-smoker of the year but she is one of a very rare breed. However, Hacker insists: "It was quite popular back in the 1600s, when women were even offered a small clay pipe as a 'refreshment' between acts of plays. There are still pipe-smoking women today but social stigmas keep most of them from doing so in the open."

Although Hacker ascribes the US pipe-smoking renaissance in part to "the need to stand out from the crowd", he refuses to accept that pipe-smokers are quintessentially eccentric. "Individualist would be a more accurate word - although to be sure, there are some eccentrics."

Perish the thought that anyone might put Findlay into that category. Not Findlay - a chap who, even as a lad, was already provoking his headmaster's ire by smoking on the way to school. Not Findlay, who admits his Holmes-style pipe is "part of my trademark". But he insists he is not addicted: "I could stop tomorrow if I wanted to. But I don't."

Findlay is, in fact, an ardent campaigner for smokers' rights. "The more people try to stop me, the more I want to do it, just to be bloody-minded."

The Pipe-Smoker of the year will be announced on January 22. Richard Carleton Hacker's books include Pipe Smoking: A 21st-Century Guide, Rare Smoke: The Ultimate Guide To Pipe Collecting and The Ultimate Pipe Bookwww.pipesmokerscouncil.org