The Daily Novel

Another charge is being brought in Scotland against an actor for smoking on stage. This time it is Keith Richards. Last time it was the actor playing Winston Churchill. To play Winston without that cigar is a travesty and it also makes it more difficult for the actor to get into the role, to get into the feeling of how it was to be Winston. And, of course, one cigar in a theatre is not going to do any damage to the lungs of the audience or even the cast.

It demonstrates that this excessively restrictive legislation is driven by the new Puritanism. And, of course, it just makes life even more difficult for the remaining smokers, who are all addictive smokers, not social smokers. Addicts deserve sympathy not punishment.

Churchill was a serious alcoholic as well. He ran the second world war while quite often totally pissed. He harangued the generals and the other ministers around the table. This is not gossip. It is all there in great detail between hard covers in the memoirs of his cabinet secretary, Lord Alan Broke, published only a few years ago. The others around the table had to keep their tempers and concentrate on cajoling him in to giving up his insistence on sending the troops in yet again to the wrong place. Because Churchill, like anyone on the booze, became more and more convinced that he was right the more he drank. It is pretty amazing that we managed to win the war.

But consider what would have happened if his colleagues had hidden the whisky bottles. Black dog taking over. Churchill slumped in his chair, morose and grumpy, staring into space. All ability to inspire and rise to fluent eloquence drained from him.

That was in the 1940s.

About two weeks ago my younger daughter, Kathy, strode into the kitchen with a smile on her face, announcing that she had given up smoking. Three days ago she came around and found me in a fit of coughing. ‘You must give up, Dad. These patches are wonderful. If you don’t get one I shall go out and buy one myself and stick it on your arm.’ I smiled wanly and said if it worked for her, fine. But I did not want try it right now until I had got the blog established. Yesterday, when I went into the kitchen, there she was puffing way at the Silk Cut.

I have given up myself a few times. The longest time was for four months when I was living in New York. It was a time in my life when I was not quite so driven by wanting to become a famous journalist. I was enjoying my social life. I had a group of friends who were in the vanguard of the Make Love Not War brigade, linked in America to something called the Committee of 100, their equivalent of CND. I had also turned vegetarian and was living off raw carrots and lettuce provided at a restaurant in the West Village.

But, apart from that, it was fun. I was going to parties where young people were making love in cupboards while elderly Quaker ladies were standing around drinking cups of tea, smiling benignly and pretending not to notice. I was not spending much time in cupboards but there were occasions when my bed, a mattress on the floor of a fifth floor walk-up on West 13th street, was not entirely empty.

And I had a couple of male friends whom I used to go out to dinner with who would ask, ‘Did you score?’ If the answer was ‘No’ their faces would show concern and sympathy. They would tell me how many times they had failed to score. We would then move on to talking of other things and having a giggle. These days they call it male bonding.

In November 1961 I decided to leave New York. It was a complicated decision but one I have never regretted. I decided to go home by ship to give me time to adjust to the change.

As the Berliner left the harbour I was leaning on the rail waving to my friends on the shore. Feeling good. I turned to the man standing next to me and bummed a cigarette. I lit it, inhaled deeply, felt the charge go right through my body, and then, deliciously exhaled. By the time the Statue of Liberty disappeared over the horizon I had smoked three. A little later I went downstairs, bought a pack of Camels, then went into dinner and ordered a steak.

I did regret one thing about leaving New York on that day. The last night I met the archetypal Swedish blonde. Just the right size and shape. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Oh, and she was a psychologist, a subject I was also interested in. I can see her now standing in the doorway of her apartment as we parted. Even writing about it makes me feel a little weak in the knees. She clearly liked me.

But I didn’t score.