I was called up in 1952 and did 2 years in the Royal Navy. The cigarettes were almost free and our living and working spaces were constantly polluted. Everywhere I worked for the next good many years was smoke filled. When I went to work in the Pilbara in the 1960s to get money in a hurry and establish myself in Australia, both my work space and living area were constantly smoke filled.

In those days, the cinemas, theatres, dance halls, pubs, clubs, public transport, restaurants, even the hospitals and doctors' surgeries were all polluted with smoke. Along the way, it had become the concensus of the medical profession that smoking, and passive smoking, were indiscriminate killers, but the lies and money of Big Tobacco still controlled the hearts and pockets of the so-called decision makers in government and the bureaucracy.

This is not a criticism of smokers in general, because most of them would have got themselves hooked long before they were old enough to be able to make a rational decision on something as important as a harmful addiction, something which would have a high chance of giving them a whole range of serious health problems before eventually killing them. And costing them a fortune along the way. No, it's a criticism of the callous creatures of Big Tobacco and their apologists in the media and advertising industries and of course in politics.

cont

In WA, we're told that smokers now number less than 25% and, of those, about 80% have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to stop. From those figures, we could perhaps deduce that only about 5% of smokers actually want to smoke. As many OLO posters will know from my comments on various subjects, I am generally a freedom of choice person and I respect a person's right to smoke. But as far as I am concerned, smokers have no right whatsoever to pollute other peoples' lungs. That went on far too long, so is it any wonder that many of us who lived through those days are so pleased to see a change in priorities?

As for still allowing smoking in workplaces such as hotels etc, then why should anyone be expected to work in such a environment? It's easy to say that prospective employees have a choice, but non-smokers who really needed a job would probably have to compromise both their principles and their health, rather than not have enough money to survive on. Besides which, in WA it's now govt policy to use smoking bans in hospitality places to encourage and assist smokers [who wish to do so] to quit, something which, at least theoretically, should please 80% of them.

The Boys Light Up

Let me tell you about my mountain home
Where all the ladies names are Joan
Where husband works back late at night
Hopes are up for trousers down
With a hostess on a business flight
Taxi in a Mercedes drive
I hope that drivers coming out alive
The garden is a dorsetted
That Lady - she's so corsetted
She's got 15 ways to lead that boy astray
He thinks he's one and only
But that lovely she's so lonely
She pumps himfull of breakfast
And she sends him on his way
What a sing song dance
What a performance
What a cheap tent show
Oh no no no no no

Chorus ~
Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Light Up
Light Up

Silently she opens the drawer
Mothers little helper is coming out for more
Strategically positioned
Before the Midday Show
Her back is arched those lips are parched
Repeated blow by blow
Later at the party all the MP's rave
About the hummers she's been giving
And the money that they save
To her it is skin lotion
For him promotion to
That flat in Surfers Paradise with the ocean view
What a sing song dance
What a performance
What a cheap tent show
Oh no no no no no

Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up

Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Then The Boys Light Up
Light up
Light up

Then The Boys Light Up
( then the boys light up

Then The Boys Light Up
Light up
Light up

Then The Boys Light Up
( then the boys light up

Then The Boys Light Up