Neil Aspinall, the real “fifth Beatle” has died at 66 – of lung cancer. Aspinall rarely spoke publicly about the four Beatles, but he did tell this story of how he met George Harrison:
My first encounter with George,” Aspinall remembered, “was behind the school air-raid shelters. This great mass of shaggy hair loomed up and an out-of-breath voice requested a quick drag of my Woodbine. It was one of the first cigarettes either of us had smoked. We spluttered our way through it bravely but gleefully.
George also died of lung cancer, at 58.
A friend of mine’s brother recently died of lung cancer, aged 60. Another friend of a friend is dying of the same disease.
I can’t help but think that as I move up in my fifties, these stories will get closer and closer. I have friends who have smoked for 30 or more years now. When we were younger, we could postpone the idea of the threat of lung cancer. I suspect it’s going to get increasingly more difficult to do that.
And don’t forget heart disease, smoking is a huge contributing factor; and then there’s emphysema and …
In my experience, the strangest thing is that until you stop you don’t fully understand how dumb the habit is.
My dad died of lung cancer about 15 years ago. It was mostly caused by his lifelong smoking, but possibly exacerbated by asbestos, which was used as insulation on the ships he’d served on in WWII. When he was diagnosed, he was in the process of giving up smoking, and had nicotine patches all over him. The first thing he did was rip off the patches, and send a nurse out to buy him some smokes. I think the old bugger was almost relieved.
I used to smoke but now I dont. Seven years Ive been free of the the nicotine.
And now I feel myself getting all elegiac and, oh my God, here is a song coming on:
Ive looked at fags from both sides now,
from give and take (up), and still somehow
Its smokes’ illusions I recall
I really loved my fags…..thats all
le sigh. There is a good reason people dont give up. There is nothing like a hit. but, Yes Im glad I dont smoke. Yes I miss it. Bloody hell I miss it. I saw my father die because of it. No I will never take it up again. Not ever. He couldn’t breathe. Yes, I will stare at you longingly as that smoke curls around your lips and you breathe in. No, never again, But I dream about it, with a drink, a latte, on its own, with or without you. But do give it up. Its no way to die. But what a way to go. What a thing to take away…Im so glad my lungs are clear now…
Schizophrenic you say? Well, der, yes.
Only a former smoker can get all misty about smelling like an ashtray and coughing like a plague victim.
(Actually my plan is to take it up again at 78, when it no longer matters, and become a very huge embarrassment to my family, smoking myself into oblivion and getting very drunk at christenings while singing that Joni Mitchell song. Thats my ambition in this very short dull boring life without my cigarettes.)
One of my best mates is watching her husband die of it slowly as we speak, at 53, after having been a very heavy smoker since his teens. It is horrible.
It may not have been clear from the post that I don’t smoke. I was a ’social smoker’ in my 20s but it’s over 20 years since I had a cigarette.
I gave it up 15 years ago. For months I thought I’d go mad. For years I really missed them. Now I’m free.
I gave them up when I was 53 after smoking for 38 years. That was 9 years ago. I have now stopped having dreams of me smoking and could feel the cigarette between my fingers. Fortunately smoking did not have much ill effects (my DNA?). Now I cannot stand the smell of the smoke of someone smoking within 8 meters of where i happen to be.
The Beatles, what a lasting affect they and some of those around them,have had on the world.
I smoke lightly still. Sometimes I’ll go for weeks without a cigarette, even months, then just go and buy a packet. I usually don’t have severe physdical withdrawals, so its pretty eassy to stop. Nor do I have a gnawing psaychological desire to hold a smoke, and all that stuff like that I used to go through. The first cigarette after a couple of week, a month, or whatever nearly kills me. Its usually enough to put me off from smoking more than one pack of fiftry over fout. five ot six days. Then I go on the wagon again. I hardly ever drink. so I supposer its my only vice. The fact that its alreading killing me woth lung problems makes me very aware of what I’m doing, so no hints or lectures, pls. I take respoinsibility for my own lifew quite happily. I mean, I didn’t have to make this comment on this thread, did I?
Wow! I never succumbed to the siren call of the fag. I had a go, but the immediate effect was nausea, dizziness and a headache, like a really bad hangover! As a result, I gave it the flick; why persevere with something that made me so crook straight away?
At least the down side of alcohol was delayed by many hours and the high was pretty good while it lasted.
I’ve almost turned into a wowser these days though; hangovers last for up to three bedridden days if I give it a decent go, which doesn’t amount to much, although I can still drink my adult kids under the table (something I’m not particularly proud of, btw). So the punishment far outweighs the pleasure. Sigh.
However, my diabetic husband is a recovering smoker with a former 100/day habit, so he really liked a smoke. He’s been giving up for 20 years for varying lengths of time, the longest being 5 years after our third child was born. At the moment he hasn’t smoked for about 3 years, but is really suffering the cravings, poor bugger.
He also likes a drink, but hasn’t managed to kick that habit.
Only one of my relatives has died of smoking related causes, but quite a few people I’ve known over the years have succumbed.
I smoke cos all my brother’s choofing friends mix their weed with tobacco; makes the green go further, so they say. Gives you a nicotine addiction within a year without your noticing, says I, five years later.
Dad stopped in 82 after seeing a documentary on “Our World” wherein the tar fron a smoker’s lung was squeezed out. (I remember it, tho I was young.) He’s been known to attempt and fail to bum one from my brother in various times of stress – stress usually caused by my brother…
Mum gave up when she found out she was preggers with me. She still declares her long-passed enjoyment of them, however. Usually when she’s been drinking.
(*N.B. Mr Rudd – baby boomers binge-drink too, and at least one of them rang the bells on the verandah – our childhood hailing to return home from the streets – to hail your victory/his defeat on the night of Nov. 24.)
A half-quitting smoking friend and I often share a Saturday smoke or two, despite his recent, otherwise successful use of patches. He has a lovely story about hiking through Nepal last year, coming across some free-growing dope and getting high while riding an elephant.
Ah, but so what of all that eh!?
“a documentary on “Our World” wherein the tar fron a smoker’s lung was squeezed out.”
You sure it wasn’t the ad where they squeezed from a sponge the equivalent amount of tar that goes in a smoker’s lungs in a year?