FORBIDDEN PLEASURES
Michael Bloch laments
the demise of Turkish cigarettes
I AM NOT a regular smoker; that is to say, I may smoke an occasional cigarette just as I occasionally eat asparagus or visit the aquarium at London Zoo. The first cigarettes.l bought, at the age of 19 some t20 years ago, were from Bacon's in the Cambridge Market Square, a splendid old establishment wi.th, much oak panelling and a retired squadron-leader sporting magnificent moustaches. No doubt I drift- ed in there seeking an occupation of some kind. As in all good tobacconists, a medley of sweet odours assailed one as one walked through the door, conjuring images of the spice trail, the opium wars, rahat lookoom and the harbour at Funchal. This came from the house-blended pipe tobaccos; but the cigarette I was recommended by the genial, whiskered proprietor amply lived up to his shop's perfumed promise.
Sullivan Powell Special Turkish Number One was its name. It was oval in shape and clung to one's lips; there was a hint of Incense about it, and a strong thick sweet- ness like liquorice; it pricked the nostrils in a sensual way, and if one blew one's nose afterwards, tar emerged. It became one of the secret joys of my university years; I suppose at the height of my habit I was smoking about 15 a week. It was not a habit to be indulged in publicly, but at soli- tary moments when one was listening to Chopin, dreaming of romantic adventures, or reading Les fleurs du mal.
After this first experience of smoking, all Virginia cigarettes and all filtered brands have seemed tasteless, insipid and frankly horrible. Sullivan Powell eventually became part of the Gallagher empire, but they had a shop in the Burlington Arcade up to a few months ago, where they sold a filtered cigarette which they continued to call Special Turkish Number One. But the assistant seemed to know nothing about tobacco when I last went in there and these filtered items bore no relation to the Sullivans I smoked 20 years ago. I tried breaking them up, discarding the filter, and rolling them up again in cigarette Paper; but there was nothing to remind one of the sweet tarry delights of yore.
Bacon's also sold a Turkish cigarette of real Turkish manufacture. It was called Yenije; it was even stronger and sweeter than Sullivan but quite tiny, being almost half the size. I enjoyed smoking these occasionally, though they left me feeling sad as they lasted such a short time. When I visited Istanbul in the autumn of 1989, I was looking forward to sampling them again. It was with tremendous shock that I discovered that Turkish cigarettes are obtainable nowhere in that city, whose inhabitants now smoke only Marlboro and other American brands. I did, however, meet an old tobacconist who believed Yenije might still be made in Izmir and sold in Ankara, though he did not seem very sure.
In the mid-Seventies, feeling the need for a change, I gave up Turkish and start- ed smoking Scott's Burma cheroots. No one who knew these delicious things, which came in gorgeous brown-and-yellow packets, will ever forget them: they tasted of cinnamon, and were so tightly-packed and slow-burning that one could keep them going for up to five hours. Then, in
`It's a jingle out there.'
1977 I think, the entire Burma tobacco crop was wiped out by some weevil, and they never reappeared. The other day I dis- covered a packet in a drawer; it must have been at least 13 years old, but the cheroots still smoked perfectly and tasted wonderful.
When I came to live in London, I went quite often to Fribourg & Treyer's lovely bow-fronted shop in the Haymarket, where they sold their own Turkish cigarettes in every strength, shape and size. None of them matched up to the original Sullivans (which had now disappeared), but they were very good nevertheless, and the men who sold them wonderfully knowledgeable. When it closed down about ten years ago, it seemed as if what remained of civilisa- tion was coming to an end. It has been replaced by a store dealing in fancy sta- tionery. In Cambridge too, Bacon's, having tried to survive by extending its merchan- dise to include hip flasks and walking sticks, has folded, giving way to an empori- um selling frocks to tourists — though a brass plaque bearing the lines of Calver- ley's Ode to Tobacco, dedicated to the orig- inal Mr Bacon, still graces the wall outside.
With the demise of Fribourg's, the English market in eastern cigarettes was cornered by Benson & Hedges, which con- tinued throughout the Eighties to offer four varieties — Turkish, Egyptian, Balkan Sobranie and Orientals. They all came in beautiful boxes but, with declining sales and absence of competition, the quality did not improve. The Orientals, great fat things which took about a quarter of an hour to smoke, started out with a wonderful heavy sweetness like the old Sullivans, but even- tually began to taste like a coarse North African cigarette such as Gitane or Gauloise. The Turkish and Egyptian ovals were quite pleasant in their way but became almost indistinguishable.
Still, one was grateful for them all; and it was with anguish that one learned that, under some European Community direc- tive, they were all to cease manufacture before 1 January 1992, I knew a splendid Colonel Whitehead at the Savile Club, a former military adviser to the Iraqi monar- chy, who had for years relied on the Turk- ish Bensons in their bright blue boxes and did not know how he would manage with- out them; he had the luck to die in Febru- ary 1991, the very month they disappeared from the shelves.
Some good Oriental cigarettes, such as Andron and Rameses II, continue to be produced by Greek firms in America; and no doubt aficionados will go there to savour these forbidden delights just as those who wish legally to enjoy hashish visit Amsterdam or Barcelona. As for myself, I stocked up with several thousand of Ben- son's Turkish and Egyptians during their last days of sale. They are a pale shadow of what I smoked 20 years ago, but enough to revive memory; if I smoke two or three a week, they should last me the rest of my life.
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