Tobacco-smoking, mid 20th Century

smoking everywhere tobacco
shops pipe
smoking cigarette brands cigarette advertising rolling your own
cigarettes cigars snuff smoking accessories

Cigarette lighters and cigarette cases
in mid 20th century Britain

  

Decorative women's cigarette lighters, made in Japan, common in the 1950s and 1960s.

I was in my teens when I made the observations described on this page. They reflected the fact that the austerity following the Second World War was coming to an end. We all wanted to appear grown-up and to have the current fashion accessories. These included smoking accessories.

It was in the late 1950s that my friends and I toyed with smoking cigarettes.

Incidentally I shortly gave up smoking and am as healthy as can be expected for my age. My university room-mate did not give it up and has to take oxygen with her wherever she goes. It is even built in to every room in her home via tubing

Cigarette lighters

What I remember most about our smoking accesssories was the cigarette lighters. At that time, cheap ones were coming in from Japan and were quite decorative. I had one faced with bright red leather that I particularly liked.

The lighters worked by lighting petrol from a flint which made a spark when a lever was pressed rapidly. Lighters needed to be refilled with petrol once the petrol ran out. This petrol came in tiny capsules from tobacconists.

A common cigarette case. The elastic held the cigarettes in place.

My father's cigarette lighter came from before the war and was silver with his initials engraved on it.

Cigarette cases

My father had a silver cigarette case that matched his lighter - from before war. Most men had similar ones. Although it looks like a box in the photo, these cigarette cases were actually curved to fit snugly against a man's chest.