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Pipe smoking

(56 Posts)
Cumbrianmale56 Sun 22-Feb-26 12:35:10

One of the last people I know to smoke a pipe died last year, and he was the only person I've seen who smoked a pipe since the nineties. It was nearly as common as cigarette smoking in the sevenries, but then went into a massive decline and a local shop that sold pipes and pipe tobacco closed down due to lack of business.
Anyone still have a partner or friend who likes to puff away on a pipe, or has the habit totally died out?

valdavi Sun 22-Feb-26 20:31:15

My Dad used to smoke a pipe, he smoked Cut Golden Bar & when I was young I had to decoy Granny while Mum popped to the tobacconists when we all did the weekly shop together (his parents thought he'd given up).
Lovely smell & like crazyH I wish I'd kept his pipe.

Cumbrianmale56 Sun 22-Feb-26 21:02:39

I always think of Harold Wilson when I see a pipe. He had a rack fitted in his Prime Ministerial Rover, so he could smoke while being chauffeured around.

travelsafar Sun 22-Feb-26 21:12:45

I remember as a child having a' bubble pipe' it bowl was shaped liked a man's head with a beard. I would dip it in a bubble mixture then blow down the stem and lots of foamy bubbles came out the top of his head!!! Anyone else remember these??

travelsafar Sun 22-Feb-26 21:20:15

This is the type of thing I mean.😊

Musicgirl Sun 22-Feb-26 21:23:57

Both my grandfathers smoked pipes when I was small. My paternal grandfather would make us little pipes out of acorns and I remember being given a plastic pipe. Toy pipes and sweet cigarettes. - it really was a different world. My maternal grandparents had two newsagents’ shops when I was very small in the late sixties before buying a sub-post office, which they ran until retirement in the late seventies. I still remember that lovely smell of pipe tobacco and confectionery mixed together. So ubiquitous was pipe smoking until the seventies that empty tobacco tins were used for each child in the infants part of the school as crayon tins and word tins, although l didn’t need the latter as I found reading very easy. Pipe cleaners were used in a variety of different craft activities.

merlotgran Sun 22-Feb-26 21:41:32

My father was a wireless operator on Sunderland flying boats during the war. They were encouraged to smoke a pipe to keep their fingers warm for sending morse code and were the only air crew permitted to smoke while airborne.

Grannybags Sun 22-Feb-26 21:54:12

travelsafar

This is the type of thing I mean.😊

Oh yes I had one of those!

Jane71 Mon 23-Feb-26 09:50:47

My great grandma used to smoke a clay pipe.

EliseC465 Mon 23-Feb-26 13:44:39

They do make pipe vapes
www.petershampipes.co.uk/

Bazza Mon 23-Feb-26 14:47:27

My stepfather used to smoke a pipe and I hated the smell, especially first thing in the morning. I used to have my breakfast toast sitting on the laundry basket in the bathroom. He would often fall asleep with it in is mouth and most of his shirts were full of tiny burn holes. I thought it was vile and I’m very pleased that it’s mostly become a thing of the past. However I still keep my pins in one of his old tobacco tins. He was a sweet man and I don’t think he ever knew how I loathed his pipe.

BoggledMind Mon 23-Feb-26 15:27:15

EliseC465

They do make pipe vapes
www.petershampipes.co.uk/

Thanks for the info, I have never seen anything like these.

I don't smoke or vape but interesting to see all the same.

Silvertwigs Mon 23-Feb-26 16:40:05

I’ve recently seen a skull of a pipe smoker, oh my oh my, a great big bulge and teeth misshapen where the pipe would rest/be sucked. All these things in mouths!! 🥱🥱

Grandmama Mon 23-Feb-26 18:12:51

DH smoked a pipe (outside in the car port, banned in the house). He collected them, had many valuable ones along with basic ones. DDs have taken some of the collectors' items, I have some on display in pipe racks in DH's memory. What to do now with an extensive - a very, very extensive - collection of pipes? A nightmare!!

Dreadwitch Mon 23-Feb-26 19:16:10

My neighbour smokes a pipe, although he'll be the last person I know when he dies.

I had a bf I the 80s who smoked a pipe, he was 18.

Allira Mon 23-Feb-26 19:27:16

Silvertwigs

I’ve recently seen a skull of a pipe smoker, oh my oh my, a great big bulge and teeth misshapen where the pipe would rest/be sucked. All these things in mouths!! 🥱🥱

I expect the teeth were misshapen before then, from when they formed or perhaps a baby thumbsucker?

My DH's teeth were never misshapen like that.

Etoile2701 Mon 23-Feb-26 19:58:36

Both my grandfathers smoked a pipe as did my late father in law, but I haven't seen anyone smoking one for years. Unhealthy, but happy memories.

Gillysugar Mon 23-Feb-26 20:34:30

My darling late husband smoked a pipe from his twenties up until his death three years ago ..never in the house , he used to sit outside when the weather was nice or in the garden room if it was wet. I put his favourite pipe and a pouch of his favourite Clan tobacco in his coffin with him when he was cremated 🥰

WithNobsOnIt Mon 23-Feb-26 21:13:57

BoggledMind

That's an interesting point. I cannot remember seeing anyone smoke a pipe since the 1980s, except on TV or in a film. It was a young fella in his twenties who smoked one. I've no idea if he kept up the habit.

Perhaps someone should make vapes in the shape of a pipe and start a trend.

Excellent idea. You could start a new trend.

WithNobsOnIt Mon 23-Feb-26 21:31:26

Not seen anybody smoke a Pipe since the Sixties. Favourite habit of old men who used to sit in the Vault of pubs, play Dominoes and smoke
St Bruno pipe tobacco.

I found pipe smoke to have a unpleasant smell and it made me cough. Had an Uncle who smoked and l had to go outside when he was around.

I think Pipe Smoking fell out of fashion for a few reasons. Firstly because of the rigmarole surrounding cleaning the pipe etc

Secondly, Pipe Smoking began to be associated with Mouth and Lip Cancer. Don't know how true this was.

Bye
X

Musicgirl Mon 23-Feb-26 22:17:08

Silvertwigs

I’ve recently seen a skull of a pipe smoker, oh my oh my, a great big bulge and teeth misshapen where the pipe would rest/be sucked. All these things in mouths!! 🥱🥱

I don’t know about misshapen teeth for my grandfathers as both of them sported full dentures from an early age, which was the case for many people, if not the majority in their generation.

Allira Mon 23-Feb-26 22:48:22

Musicgirl

Silvertwigs

I’ve recently seen a skull of a pipe smoker, oh my oh my, a great big bulge and teeth misshapen where the pipe would rest/be sucked. All these things in mouths!! 🥱🥱

I don’t know about misshapen teeth for my grandfathers as both of them sported full dentures from an early age, which was the case for many people, if not the majority in their generation.

My Dad still had his own, straight, teeth until he died in his mid-eighties.
He had given up his pipe years before but must have been smoking it when he was younger, so quite a few years.
And no, I don't think he frequented the vaults of pubs or play dominoes (unless he played them with me!).

BlueBelle Tue 24-Feb-26 05:08:12

My paternal grandad was a pipe smoker he died a horrible death from throat cancer

Witzend Tue 24-Feb-26 08:44:07

I used to love the smell of pipe tobacco smoke!
My DF smoked a pipe for years - a Christmas present the 4 of us used to buy him as children - when we had enough money - was a tin of Pope’s Escudo tobacco.

Plus a have a superb photo of him - pipe in mouth! - taken while he was on watch on his N Atlantic convoy RN ship during WW2. Apparently it was taken by an American photographer who was ‘embedded’ with them, as they saying goes now.

Musicgirl Tue 24-Feb-26 08:55:01

Allira, my grandfathers were certainly not pub visitors; especially my maternal grandfather, who was a very respectable non-conformist churchgoer. My paternal grandfather was an Anglican. I’m glad your father had good teeth, which was fairly uncommon then. These days, most of us can expect to keep most of our teeth for life, although mine needed considerable orthodontic treatment and are still not particularly straight and even, unlike your father, but, thankfully are mostly strong.

SORES Tue 24-Feb-26 11:18:13

My memory is that where there was pipe tobacco/smoking there were invariably mint imperials.