Celebrating International Pipe Day: Up in smoke?

It causes increased risk of stroke, heart disease, chronic lung disease and cancers from the throat to the rectum. So who exactly is going to be celebrating International Pipe Smoking Day tomorrow? Stephen McGinty went to an Edinburgh pub to find out

LEFT: Peter Jones lights up his pipe outside the Cuddie Brae pub, where his Edinburgh Pipe Club meets MAIN: A member of the Lords and Commons Pipe and Cigar Smokers Club at an annual lunch BELOW: Donald Findlay, QC, perhaps Scotland's most famous pipe smoker

Pictures: Robert Perry/Dan Phillips/Rex

PUFFING softly from an elegant antique pipe, Peter Jones sends sweet-scented billows of smoke up into the crisp night air. At the wooden smokers shack behind the Cuddie Brae pub in Newcraighall, the third meeting of the Edinburgh Pipe Club is well under way, unfortunately the numbers have been disappointing. The grand total in attendance is, well, just one. Yes, Mr Jones, a truck driver, former life-time cigarette smoker and recent convert to the "brotherhood of the briar", as pipe-puffers are commonly known, is the only one here. Yet demonstrating the eternal optimism of a seasoned pipe smoker he is not down-hearted. The first meeting had two attendees, the second meeting had two and now the third gathering has endured a 50 per cent slump. "I've had dozens of e-mail enquiries from interested smokers," he ponders before sending a swirl of smoke up amongst the heaters. "Maybe Thursday just isn't such a good night."

Just as well then that the next meeting takes place tomorrow afternoon, on the date designated as International Pipe Smoking Day. Set up three years ago by a group of online pipe smoking enthusiasts who extol the virtues of a Missouri Meerschaum Diplomat filled with St Bruno Ready Rubbed, the idea is for pipe-smokers around the world to meet and raise a bowl of tobacco to their benevolent – if potentially lethal – hobby. Pipe clubs will be meeting in New York, Vancouver, Beirut… and Scotland's capital, united by a mission statement that explains how they wish to: "Foster links across the globe in honour of friendship, benevolence, and tranquillity; and to celebrate the fraternity of pipe-smokers across all borders."

Yet who actually smokes a pipe nowadays? Well somebody has to be puffing through the 30 tonnes of pipe tobacco sold in Scotland each year, (around 300 tonnes were sold in the UK in 2009), a market worth around 5 million, compared to 50m nationwide. According to Imperial Tobacco which has a third of the market and sells the most popular brand, the aforementioned St Bruno, the average smoker of flake tobacco, which is actually sold as a brick to be broken down by the fingers of the purchaser, is 65, while those who partake of ready rubbed are the hipper, younger generation, with a mean age of 50.

At 59, Donald Findlay, QC, lies between the two and is Scotland's most famous pipe smoker, forever striding to court with a pipe clenched firmly between his teeth, where it has largely remained for the past 45 years, "When I was 15 I plucked up the courage to tell my late father that I thought I might take up smoking. He didn't say a word, as he was wont to do, but later that day he took me to a tobacconist in Harrowgate of all places as that was where we were staying and bought a pipe, a pouch of tobacco and two packets of Swan Vestas matches and handed them to me, again without saying a word. My mother later told me that he was quite confident that he would get them back later that day."

Instead Donald Findlay has puffed through the decades, and now has an array of 300 pipes in his collection. But does he agree with Einstein that, "pipe smoking makes you look smart"? He's not so sure: "Far be it from me to disagree with Einstein, but I don't know if its good for thinking. It's a hobby, more of hobby than cigarettes, you have all the accoutrements, there is all the fiddling about before you can enjoy the tobacco and I think that aids concentration. I just enjoy it."

He does believe that the last trails of pipe smoke are rapidly dissipating. "It's more of less dead. Now if I see another person smoking a pipe even I look twice because it's such a rare thing to see."

While the market for pipe tobacco is now declining at a rate of around 10 per cent per year, there are those anxious to keep the pipe bowls burning, including Peter Jones, who may have only lit his first pipe last July but already has the passion of a true convert. At 43, Jones was growing weary of the 5 per day cost of his cigarette habit, while the smoking ban in public places meant he and his wife were no longer going out for dinner or drinks. An admirer of the "old school"

gentleman, he shaves with an open razor and first read about the pleasures of pipe smoking on a "shaving website", he decided to give it a go. "I did some research and got a cheap second-hand pipe from eBay for 5, it was a Falcon, the same one my grandfather used to smoke, with an aluminium stem and interchangeable bowls. I thought if I don't like it, I'd put it back on eBay."

After picking up a pouch of St Bruno tobacco and watching a number of videos on how to light a pipe, no easy feat, on YouTube, he was ready to go. "What I liked about it was the flavour. I did inhale a little bit at the beginning which was a mistake, I need to work on that. Particularly with the milder tobaccos, I do find myself inhaling. It's a more complex flavour than cigarettes. What I found was that people who smoke pipes don't know anyone else that smokes a pipe. In the past it was part of everyday life – but today I can count on one hand the people who smoke a pipe. For me, a pipe is about a change of pace."

He now has a collection of 16 pipes and writes a blog which includes posts such as the following on 17 January: "I finally got around to trying my first corn cob pipe last night, and was pleasantly surprised! I left the supplied Medico 6mm paper filter in and enjoyed a very nice, cool, dry smoke!" The new hobby even has the support of his wife. Today Peter Jones drives round with an unlit pipe wedged between his teeth – "it feels good, better than those fake plastic Nicorette inhalers". As for the health implication, he is characteristically relaxed: "I know there are health risks and that they are different from cigarettes – you are ingesting nicotine which is one of the world's most poisonous drugs. But you could also be hit by a bus tomorrow."

It is not an attitude likely to endear him to Ash Scotland, whose chief executive Sheila Duffy explains that pipe smoking is not "a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes, as people often think." She said: "The hazards are similar to those of cigar smoking. As pipe smokers are still using tobacco, which is a poison, they risk the same health hazards as other tobacco users including cancers of the mouth, lung, throat, oesophagus, larynx, pancreas, and colon and rectum. There is also an increased risk of suffering heart disease, stroke, and chronic lung disease." But it is still worth the risk, according to Jim Lilley, the world's foremost expert on Peterson pipes. The retired local government officer from Dumfries has never smoked a cigarette in his life, but picked up the pipe 15 years ago and believes its appeal lies in the ritual of cleaning and preparation prior to smoking. He said: "The key word is ritual. You can't say that about a cigarette, that is just a quick fix, whereas a pipe is a thing of beauty or art. There is nothing better than sitting at night with a long church warden-style pipe and a glass of something nice. There is a lot of romance associated with the contemplation and the image of a pipe."

If pipe smoking has entered its twilight years, it can be said to have had an extraordinary innings, dating back to 2500BC when North American Indians used stone pipes before later carving them from wood. As Iain Gately explained in his book, La Diva Nicotina "smoking appears to have been a form of profound meditation – a device to raise the smoker above the distractions of a world of flesh."

The pipe reached Britain in 1519 and by 1642 Gilbert Frazer and Robert Tate began making them in Edinburgh, filling them with the tobacco arriving regularly at Leith docks. Over the years, pipe smoking has accrued an image of quiet contemplation, one separate from the nicotine addicts who smoke cigarettes and the wealth and arrogance associated with cigars. Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister, used his pipe as a political symbol of the working man, despite personally preferring cigars. Between 1964 and 2004, when it was cancelled due to the ban on tobacco advertising, The British Pipesmoker's Council handed out Pipe Smoker of the Year awards with Stephen Fry the last honoured.

The embers of pipe smoking may yet glow again, if, as Jim Lilley insists, there are a new generation of younger pipe smokers coming along. Among them is Alexis Hall, 28, who joined the "brotherhood of the briar" at the age of 25, purchasing his first pipe at Robert Graham tobacconist on Rose Street, after a month conducting thorough research.

"My grandad smoked a pipe, so I wanted to get one," he said, adding that he was attracted by the history and quality of pipe smoking. Consummate Gentleman was his tobacco of choice but his debut smoke was anything but consummate.

"It was quite stressful. I didn't know how to burn it properly and so you light up expecting a relaxing experience and end up wanting to throw it into the corner."

He persevered, however, and now enjoys a quiet puff once a month during winter and a couple of times a week during summer. His friends "find it quite funny and say they fancy a dabble but they never do." At 2:30pm tomorrow, Peter Jones will arrive at the Cuddie Brae for his new pastime's annual day of celebration. He said of the club's goal: "The main reason was not knowing anybody who smoked pipes. I thought there has to be a demand in Edinburgh – we have three proper traditional tobacconists and they all sell pipe tobacco. So where are we pipe smokers? A lot will be the old boys who would not be real 'joiners' but you hear about students picking it up. I fancied the camaraderie and to share technique and to see how other people smoke their pipes."

Let us hope he doesn't have to raise a bowl alone.

DECLARATION OF PIPES

International Pipe Smoking Day has been set up by a band of pipe bloggers with the idea of uniting the world's pipe smokers to celebrate their hobby on a particular day each year, 20 February. As part of the annual celebration they compiled a manifesto which reads as follows:

WE envision a worldwide communion of pipe smokers that is bound together by a shared love forpipe smoking, mutual respect, and goodwill. l We envision a society that respects the informed choice and adult use of smoking tobacco

• We envision a world where governments act in good faith and integrity, and have the political will and personal courage to express their values appropriately through legislative means.

• This means that as a group we are united and strong in our beliefs, have understanding, patience, wisdom, enjoy the philosophical aspect of pipe smoking, and seek to promote pipe smoking as part of a lifestyle that can be thoroughly enjoyable to adults through the responsible use of tobacco.

MISSION

To foster links across the globe in honour of friendship, benevolence, and tranquillity; and to celebrate the fraternity of pipe smokers across all borders.

PURPOSE

On this day we will take a breather and celebrate the noble art of pipe-smoking and the noble spirit which pervades the brother/sisterhood of the briar. We will put into practice the time-honoured and ancestral traditions of raising our pipes in toast to each other in the evening in unison and, thus, share a bowl together.

PHILOSOPHY

Today's hectic environment almost dictates that we run on full efficiency, have total involvement in our work, our families and in every aspect of what we do to survive and achieve in a world set at high speed. With ever-changing values it is the intent that the International Pipe Smoking Day will allow us, the Brothers and Sisters of the Briar to step back and appreciate our rich historical value. For pipe smokers and pipe smoking everywhere the day will be emblematic of our shared values, history, traditions, and aspirations.