The 1970s was a confusing decade in which to be a smoker. People knew, of course, that smoking was bad for them: the evidence linking it to lung cancer had been incontrovertible since 1956. But despite government education programmes, hiked taxes and restrictions in selling to children, these warnings hadn’t fully permeated the atmosphere.
How could they? Daily life bathed the brain in the idea that smoking was fine. Cigarettes were advertised in magazines, on billboards and at sporting events; they dangled from the mouths of the suave or rebellious in film and on TV; and a nicotine fug enveloped offices, bars and public transport. Could something that everyone was doing, and which suffused the culture, really be that shockingly dangerous?
