Pipe smoking

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.

This is the type of thing I mean.😊

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??

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.

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.

DH smoked a pipe on and off for some years, switching eventually from briar pipes to Falcons with interchangeable bowls and the metal stem that was supposed to cool the smoke. Not sure he bought into that theory! He smoked Three Nuns, Erinmore Mixture and another one the name of which escapes me but it smelled lovely. In the early eighties he gave up smoking altogether.

My grandfather smoked a pipe all his life and so did an uncle who had dozens of pipes in racks about his home. The different shapes and the colours of the woods fascinated me as a small child.

My Dad smoked a pipe, when he was told by his doctor to give up smoking cigarettes he decided to keep on smoking his pipe but I think he just liked it in his mouth and used to suck on it! When he died my daughter asked if she could have it along with a little stand that she'd made at school for him.

Pipes were a faff to look after, but pipe smokers said they could have a longer smoke than cigarettes and the tobacco worked out cheaper as it lasted longer.

Your BIL sounds like an old fogey after my own heart, Casdon, except that I have never smoked. Off to iron some shirts of the sort you describe.

I always loved the smell of the pipe tobacco in our local tobacconist, even though I never been a fan of people smoking. Obviously the shop is long gone. Can't say I have seen anyone smoking a pipe for many years. Vapes certainly don't smell as nice.

My Dad smoked a pipe. Such a shame I didn’t keep one. I was onlyb14 when he passed away, and things like that don’t cross your mind.🥲

My late DH smoked a pipe. My dad also a pipe smoker persuaded him to change to a pipe from cigarettes 🙄.It was a right palaver, knocking out the remains of the last smoke , scraping it out , filling it and then lighting it sucking hard to get it going, for about three puffs then he put in down in the ash tray! I , hated the smoke, the smell and the mess it made. He did try giving up many times but never succeeded - even tried vaping which I thought he would to adapt easily.

I don't know why but I find calling this "The Wake" rather disrespectful.

In my family the food/drinks after he funeral were referred to as the "reception" but I've heard it be called the "tea" or, years ago, the "repast".

From what I’ve heard and read NotSpaghetti the tradtion was common place in rural Ireland till the late 19th century.

I’ve been to many Irish family wakes in my lifetime and as you say it’s been the period between death and burial. In the UK in recent decades the reception/meal after the funeral tends to be referred to as the wake by most people. When my Irish cousins travelled to the UK for a family funeral they were baffled when they were given the address of the local hotel for the wake after the burial.

Grannynannywanny that was an actual wake... that time before the funeral when families and friends would stay awake to observe the body, and make sure the deceased really was dead.

I feel privileged to have been able to sit with family and friends for a while after a death in the "old fashioned way".

Now the reception after the funeral keeps being called "the wake"!

Sorry to derail the thread - but I haven't seen the pipes being offered - just whisky and tea. I wonder how late that custom continued?

My uncle, my father in law and several friends smoked a pipe once upon a time - but none since the 1980s that I can remember.

In 19th century rural Ireland clay pipe smoking was part of the wake and funeral tradition. As well as providing food, whiskey and stout for the wake the next of kin provided trays of clay pipes filled with tobacco. They were passed round the visiting mourners . The stems of the pipes were dipped in the whiskey or stout to flavour the clay.

That took place in the home of the deceased where they’d be laid out for 24hrs before burial. It was traditional for everyone to have a drink, some food and a puff of tobacco.

Cumbrianmale56

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?

The last time I saw anyone smoke a pipe in public was twenty years ago in a restaurant. The cigarette ban was new and in full force. A tourist finished his meal and lit up a pipe.

The head waiter rushed up to point to the red circle sign and explain Sir must put it out straight away. Sir said that the sign was about cigarettes not pipes. In his country, men often enjoyed a pipe after a meal in restaurants. The Head Waiter opened the door wide and invited him to enjoy the pipe outside. Pipe extinguished.

I have a tiny b&w photo taken in the 1920’s of my grandpa’s sister. She’s smoking a clay pipe . It wasn’t unusual then for women to smoke clay pipes.

My father smoked a pipe for years but gave up in his late sixties or seventies. He smoked St Bruno Flake.

He collected unusual pipes from around the world, don't know where they are now.

My dad smoked a pipe when I was a child in the 50’s and 60’s and I always loved the smell . Just recently I passed by an elderly man puffing away on his pipe and my mind instantly travelled back to my childhood sitting on my dad’s lap while he smoked his pipe. No concerns of passive smoking !

My dad smoked plug tobacco. It came in a dense small block and had to be sliced thinly and then rubbed in the palms of hands to reduce it to flakes ready to smoke. I was a dab hand at the rubbing and flaking and then filling his tobacco pouch 😊

Grannybags thank you for mentioning the pipe make. I was trying to recall the make of my dad’s pipe and it was a Meerschaum . He had a couple of different pipes but the bent was his favourite.

My dad used to smoke a pipe. He was a farmer and once checking the sheep next to the town park he saw a man waving, how friendly he thought….until he realised his jacket was on fire! He had put his pipe in his pocket to deal with a sheep!

My brother hankered after a Peterson’s Meerschaum bent! 😁

Just the smell now would take me back to my childhood and happy days

There were so many varieties of pipe. You could get clay pipes, the curled Sherlock Holmes types, straight ones, ornamental pipes, and the corn cob type from America. They were quite interesting to see in tobacconists windows.

My dad always smoked a pipe.

His favoured tobacco was Erinmore mixture.

Much nicer smell than St Bruno, which other pipe smokers used.

I can still visualise the tobacconists shop where Mum bought the tobacco.

Lovely smell, and they had walking sticks for sale in the corner.

A bygone age.

Terrible health wise, I know, but oh, lovely memories of childhood.

I watched the old version of Tinker Tailor and one of the characters smoked a pipe another chain smoked and it was quite shocking. Thank goodness the cigarette smoking has died out to an extent.
I loved the smell of Clan pipe tobacco, but don't miss the rest of the pipe smoking palaver. DH smoked cigarettes, then a pipe then small cigars. All lead to his debilitating emphysema.