Those who know me will remember I used to be a heavy smoker.  Over more than a couple of decades I found myself getting through ever increasing numbers of cigarettes until I reached 30 or more a day and started to scare myself.  What finally stopped me, apart from the staggering cost, was watching a family member dying very slowly, painfully and far too young of lung disease that gradually robbed him of every last shred of dignity.  That was 13 years ago.  Quitting wasn’t as hard as I’d expected and I’ve never once regretted it.  So without wanting to preach, I’d heartily recommend giving up.

Which leaves a rather obvious issue.  Why, I am sometimes asked, do so many of the characters in my ‘Saltbury Chronicles’ smoke?  Partly it’s a question of different realism for different times.  ‘Haze’, the first of the ‘Saltbury’ books, is set in 2001 and it’s a simple fact that far more people did smoke back then.  They did it more publicly, too.  Those were the days before smoking was banned in bars, restaurants etc in Britain.  Even airliners might still have a few smoking seats in the back.

I wonder if that’s the whole story, though.  Is it possible that even after all these years there might still be a vicarious pleasure in having a character smoke, almost on my behalf, now that I can’t, or at least don’t smoke myself?  Perhaps there’s something for the psychologists to think about there?

Tina Burns is the worst offender.  As a school senior she sneaks out at lunchtimes because she can’t get through an entire school day without a cigarette.  But her best friend Hazel Fauld isn’t much better and both are being set a bad example by smoking parents.  For example, Hazel’s No’ 2 Mum is Rock star Debbie Stewart and of course she dutifully gives up for her two pregnancies.  But she struggles to keep up her abstinence afterwards, despite encouragement from her non-smoking wife, Martine.

Years later when the two friends have left school, even Tina’s super-fit, athlete girlfriend: non-drinking, non-smoking Carol, occasionally scrounges a cigarette from Teen when she’s feeling stressed.

Then there’s the St. Ann’s School for Girls History teacher, Miss Carter, who the girls nickname ‘Smokey Eth’.  She’s so addicted she often slips out of lessons for a smoke, leaving her pupils with work to do till she gets back.

Of course it wouldn’t be real without a few anti smokers.  Hazel and Tina’s enemy (and then sort of friend) Yvonne Wright is one such.  Pupils smoking is absolutely against the school rules at St. Ann’s, and tyrannical Games teacher Miss Baxter drags Hazel and Tina in front of the headmistress when she catches them having a cigarette on school property.

Even so, I have other smoking characters, such as Hazel’s beloved Annie (who later quits).  Tina’s father smokes a pipe, as does tug captain Chantel Barham, despite (or perhaps because of) her late father being shocked at the sight of a woman smoking a pipe.

A few weeks ago, I finished the first draft of a later book for the series, ‘Sofia’ which features a grown up Sofie Fauld (a.k.a. ‘Monster’) as narrator.  It is set 20 years after ‘Haze’ in a much more smoke-free world, so maybe Sofie and her sister Danielle are finally weaning me off any remaining wistfulness for the evil weed.  Mind you, even then you will meet a new character, the haughty but beautiful aristocrat, Lady Tara Jackerman-Prodnoze.  She is six years older than Sofie, who finds her insufferably patronising, but she also has a taste for exclusive single-malt whiskies and big, expensive Cuban cigars.