Ashtray of history
Sir: In his letter (17 March) Norman Stone writes from the History Faculty Library (of all places) that he started chain-smoking `just one week before the first cancer- scares' which, he then says, were in 1960. In fact, so noisy had the 'cancer-scares' become at least ten years earlier than 1960, that even my father gave up smoking in 1951, the resulting savings alone having such a staggering impact upon his and his family's lives that the year is imprinted on our memories!
By 1960 the proven deplorable effects of inhaling tobacco-smoke were common knowledge. Hence, no smoker born and reared in Britain or the United States since 1950 should ever expect either his intelli- gence or his upbringing to command re- spect, any more than the earnest confu- sions and exploited blindness suffered by the sandals-with-socks simpletons of CND.
John R. Gibson 26 Highland Road, Northwood Hills, Middlesex
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