Summary
Laurie Taylor talks to Ivan Markovic, Lecturer in Human Geography at Durham University, about the unique social atmosphere surrounding tobacco use in modern Britain, from its encouragement as part of the Home Front ‘mood management’ during the Second World War to the impact of smoking on 1980s workplace regulations and the UK ban on its use in public places in 2007. Does smoking still play a significant part in the British cultural imagination? Also, Tricia Starks, Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, discusses cigarettes and the Soviet smoking habit. How did the USSR become the first mass smoking society whilst simultaneously opposing this quintessential capitalist product?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | He tells her that she will be sent to France as a secret agent, and if she's caught, she's going to be shot. |
| 0:09.3 | I'm Helen Obalam Carter, and this is history's secret heroes, where I shine a light on extraordinary stories from World War II. |
| 0:17.6 | What they wanted was someone to get themselves arrested and sent to Auschwitz. |
| 0:22.0 | Tales of deception and incredible acts of resistance and courage. She was a born soldier. |
| 0:27.4 | She's a freedom fighter in its widest sense. The brand new series of history's secret heroes. |
| 0:32.8 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:40.0 | This is a Thinking Aloud podcast from the BBC, and for more details and much, much more about |
| 0:46.1 | thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co.com. |
| 0:50.7 | Hello, J. Alfred Proofrock's lamentation that he has measured out his life in coffee spoons is a familiar |
| 0:58.3 | poetic trope, but rather less well known is T.S. Eliot's further lamenting question, how should I begin |
| 1:06.0 | to spit out all the butt ends of my days and ways. It's a line that takes me straight back to my |
| 1:14.0 | late childhood packs of five woodbines, players' medium navy cut and senior service, a product of the |
| 1:21.7 | mastermind, it's said on the original pack, and finally the macho inhalations of Capstan full strength. |
| 1:28.8 | How appropriate it is that my present substitute for all these past tobacco delights should |
| 1:34.7 | sound so tellingly bland, the vapid vape. |
| 1:39.4 | But I have a small consolation at hand, a book that promises to remind me of the meaning |
| 1:44.1 | of smoking, |
| 1:44.8 | the social, cultural and emotional aspects. A book entitled, An Atmospheric History of Smoking |
| 1:51.2 | in Modern Britain, and I'm now joined by its author, Ivan Markovic, lecturer in human geography |
| 1:57.1 | at the University of Durham. Evan you vividly described the final scene of the 1942 film Now a Voyager, the one starring |
| 2:06.8 | Bette Davis, as it provides for you a good representation of what we might think |
| 2:11.5 | are both an atmosphere of smoking. |
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