What made you start smoking?

[silliemillie]

I have never smoked myself so dont understand the whys & wherefores.

Obviously once the addiction takes over thats different but why would you think to start in the first place?

Was it mostly peer pressure/being encouraged to by others?

[baza]

peer pressure at school as a teenager

[237SJ]

I used to nick the cigarettes out of my Dad`s packet and take them off to a field somewhere with one of my friends and smoke them. There was no peer pressure but I probably thought it was a grown-up thing to do, plus it was a bit naughty and that thought was quite attractive to me.

[RevArkwright]

First girlfriend.

[sherrardk]

Same as Baza, wish I hadn't started but currently lacking the drive to stop although I am making headways with cutting down.

[LazyGun]

I guess you would call it peer group pressure - For me, it fit with my own self-image of being a rebel ;) Stupid, really.

Add to that, when I started at least, smoking was perceived as being cool and sophisticated.

Very glad to have quit smoking, not least because of the financial saving.

[Nibble]

Being whinged at by health professionals, interfering busibodies!!

[silliemillie]

my Mum actually put me off, but not in the way you would think.

Loved her cuddles when I was young but always had to turn my face away because of the smell.

Also saw how it ruled her life, everything was arranged around when she could have her next ciggie. Its even worse now you cant smoke many places.

Not much chance of her giving up now...she's 75!

[237SJ]

I was talking to a friend of mine who has never smoked and he was speaking about his sister. He said "I always knew she would be a smoker". I do think some people can have the tendncy to smoke and others not.

[237SJ]

*tendency*

[baza]

used to nick the odd one from mums packet of 20 but my brother used to do the same so she soon noticed, started buying y own at 1/3d for ten with my paper round money 10s a week. Now I roll my own and wish that Id never started.

[owdhamer]

Like you clever millie i have never smoked could not see the point.

[vulcan]

Didn't start until I joined the RAF, everybody smoked and I just joined in. In those days there wasn't the anti smoking campaign that there is today, it was almost encouraged. We could buy cigarettes in round tins of fifty for 2/6 (22.5 pence) and every few weeks, when overseas, a tea chest would arrive full of cigarettes seized by customs and handed out free. I stopped in 1984.

[baza]

^^ my.
fags one shilling and three pence, wages ten shillings or in dismal currency
6p and 50p

[wardlaw]

Child of the fifties. Everybody did it . Brain took over as I grew up and quitted.

[karenmac60]

Drink ;-)

[Misky]

My answer is word for word as 237SJ!

[daffy654]

I was brought up in the care system, everyone smoked. I was given my first cigarette when I was 8 years old, I was smoking properly (buying my own fags with pocket money) at age 10.

I quit smoking 8 days ago and have already saved myself £50.00+
:)

[jno]

back in the 50s and 60s there was simply no reason not to. It made you cough and was smelly but it wasn't seen as a real risk except by a very few people. On the plus side it was thought to be cool (an image heavily encouraged by ciggy makers).

Look at these: Reagan, John Wayne, "Its He-Man Aroma WOWS the Ladies!", "Not One Single Case of Throat Irritation"

http://gcaggiano.word...ell-were-we-thinking/

I remember Mad Magazine used to run spoof cigarette ads back in the 60s as an anti-smoking campaign; this was very prescient but seen as quite bizarre at the time.

[Essell]

Services. Once out of the UK you were given 7 packets of 20 Senior Service every week. They were specially wrapped in cellophane (sp?) in packets of seven.

[Essell]

Smoking was so acceptable that patients had ashtrays by their beds. Patients with nerve damage, and who lacked feeling in their fingers, were given gloves to use when smoking, so that they would not burn themselves.