Did You Know… Life In 1960s/70s Britain : When Cigarettes Were Everywhere: Britain Before the Smoking Ban

 

Ashtrays, blue haze, and the smell of cigarette smoke were woven into everyday life.

In the 1960s and 70s, smoking was a common activity in Britain, and it was everywhere. Cigarettes were a part of daily life. People smoked at work, at home, in cafés, on public transport, and even while watching a film at the cinema. 

It was so normal that it barely registered as remarkable.

Today, it feels almost unimaginable. But at the time, it was simply how things were.

A Nation of Smokers

By the early 1960s, Britain was a nation of smokers, and smoking rates were at their peak. Around half of all adults smoked, with cigarettes heavily advertised and culturally acceptable. It was even presented as something that was desirable. Smoking was associated with sophistication, relaxation, and adulthood. For young people, it was also a sign of rebellion.

There were health warnings, and early medical reports had made the connection of smoking to lung cancer, but they were easy for people to ignore. The warnings were often drowned out by advertising that linked smoking with a life of glamour and freedom. 

It took a long time for a shift in public opinion to arrive. At the time, for many, smoking was a part of life and popular. Cigarettes were cheap, widely available, and socially accepted almost everywhere. It was the norm. In fact, you might be considered the odd one out if you didn’t smoke.

Smoking in the Home

I lived in a home where all the adults smoked. My parents, grandparents, relatives, and just about every adult who visited would quickly light up a cigarette or be offered one. My memory is of every adult smoking. Another memory that I have is of the smoke stains on the upper part of walls and ceilings. Cigarette smoke rises; it has nowhere to go but up. Brightly painted or papered walls would develop a cigarette smoke shadow.

I have never smoked, but for the first fifteen to twenty years of my life I was a passive smoker. At the time I had no idea that was the case, but later I became aware of it, after the death of the British entertainer, Roy Castle, in 1994. Castle died of lung cancer, which, as he was a non-smoker, he believed happened while working in the smoke-filled rooms of jazz clubs in the 1960s. As far as I know, my lungs survived the passive smoking years.

Smoking at School

At school, I knew certain boys that smoked. Yes, they would usually find a secretive place to go for a cigarette,  sometimes behind the bike sheds. That place was too obvious, though, and boys caught there would end up in the headmaster’s office for ‘six of the best’. 

I was never tempted.

A mate of mine was given the nickname JP, after John Player, the name of the company that made the cigarettes that he smoked. Later, we would call him ‘Wheezer’, as he would always end up coughing his lungs out when cross-country running.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: The British Staycation - The Nostalgic Charm of Holidaying at Home in a Bygone Era.

 

Caravans, B&Bs, and seaside towns — before foreign travel became routine.

In the 1960s and 70s, for the majority of ‘Brits’, taking a holiday abroad was still something of a novelty. Far-off lands with exotic names were a dream holiday or not even thought about — they were out of reach. For most families, a summer holiday didn’t involve airports, passports, or sun loungers in exotic places only seen on a world map. Foreign travel happened, of course, but it was far from common, and holidays were shaped by cost, access, and habit. 

The chances were that if you went overseas, you had money.

Instead, a British family holiday meant packing the car, catching a train, or boarding a coach and heading somewhere in Britain. It could be the countryside or more likely, a familiar holiday town that provided everything a family could want.

The big deal was a holiday by the seaside, at one of the country’s many resorts. Britain, with its long coastline and well-established holiday towns and industry, was where the vast majority of people spent their annual break. In many ways, British holiday trends were well set and predictable.

The Rise of the British Seaside Holiday

By the mid-20th century, Britain already had a strong tradition of domestic holidays. Since Victorian times, resorts like Blackpool, Margate, Brighton, Skegness, and Scarborough welcomed holidaymakers. By the 1960s, these towns were at their peak, packed with amusement parks, piers, theatres, arcades, and boarding houses.

Many factories and workplaces closed for set weeks, particularly in industrial towns, creating a shared “holiday season” when entire communities decamped at once. In the north of England, this was known as Wakes Week, which began during the Industrial Revolution.

For working families, the annual holiday was often the only extended break from work all year. Two weeks of summer, traditionally the first two weeks in July. As children, school holidays gave us a long summer holiday taht seemed to go on forever.  I remember that it lasted about eight weeks, but those two weeks away, if we were lucky, were the big event of the summer.

Once I knew that a holiday to the seaside was planned, I would save my pocket money and everything that I had earned for those two weeks away. The call of the arcades, the slot machines, the chance to be a pinball wizard, or a hotshot on one of the gun machines was strong. Even the seaside bingo, much loved by grandparents, had its attraction. I counted the pennies, knowing that back then, a penny went a long way in the arcades.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: Flared Trousers Were Once So Wide They Got Caught in Your Bike Chain?

 

So yes, did you know that flared trousers were once so wide they regularly got caught in people’s bike chains? It’s one of those silly things that captures the spirit of 1970s Britain — a time when trousers danced in the wind, and every young cyclist pedalled with a hint of danger.

 

Fashion trends come and go, and then there are some that arrive and take over the entire country. They leave future generations wondering if everyone had collectively lost their minds.

What were we thinking?

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was the great flared trousers explosion. If you lived through that era, you’ll remember trousers that weren’t just flared; they were enormous. Trousers so wide at the ankles that simply riding a bicycle became a public safety hazard.

Flares, or, if you were American, bell-bottoms, started off as quite modest things. A gentle widening at the trouser hem, influenced by naval uniforms of the past.

The fashion actually went back a couple of hundred years in history, but then 1960s pop culture caught on. The hippie movement adopted them. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and Cher often wore them. They were not the only ones, as flares became not just a fashion statement but a symbol of self-expression and rebellion.

Like many innocent ideas, they escalated. By the mid-1970s, it seemed the national objective was to create trousers so wide at the ankles that they could double as a tent. As teenagers, we strutted down every street and road in trousers that resisted the slightest breeze. On really windy days, you could get blown away. If the weather forecast was for gale-force winds, it was better to stay indoors.

The width varied from person to person, but there was a competition for the widest.

“Mine are 22-inch bottoms,” someone would boast.

“Oh yeah?” Another would say, “Mine are 26.”

Before long, hems had reached levels that you could make a pair of curtains out of them. Some flares were so big they would cover your shoes, creating a strange gliding illusion, as if you were floating along.

But we wanted them — everyone wore flares — even our parents wore them in the seventies.

What’s in a Name? Forgotten British Names of the Past

 

Ever wonder what happened to names like Hilda, Norman, or Enid? This nostalgic look back explores the once-popular British names that defined generations — and quietly disappeared from everyday life.

 

What's In a Name?

My name is Martin. I’ve no idea who chose it for me — Mam? Dad? A coin toss? I never asked. Apparently, it was a popular name in the early 1960s, so perhaps they simply went with fashion. Not that “fashionable” is the word you’d associate with “Martin” these days. Dependable, perhaps. I might have picked something else.

Names, like hemlines and pop bands, go in and out of fashion. Some have their moment in the sun, then quietly slip away, only to be revived decades later by a new generation of parents who think they’re wonderfully vintage.

Others never quite make a comeback. They seem to be too firmly anchored to another time, another place, another era entirely.

Take a look at the top baby names in the UK in 2024, and it’s a different world altogether.

For boys, the top five last year were Muhammad, Noah, Oliver, Arthur, and Leo.

For girls — Olivia, Amelia, Lily, Isla, and Ivy.

Arthur surprised me, though. A name from the past. I came across quite a few Arthur's in the 1960s and 70s. Not just the historical ones, like King Arthur. There was Arthur Lowe of Dad’s Army fame and Arthur Askey and his ghost train. In tennis, Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975.

Arthur was the number one boys’ name in Wales in 2024. Not bad for a bloke who once pulled a sword from a stone. Arthur, it seems, never truly goes out of style; it just goes to sleep for a few decades.

But what about the names that have gone quiet? The ones that once filled playgrounds and office chats, pub quiz teams and post office queues. The Hilda's, the Normans, the Enid's of yesteryear.

Where did they all go?

Time for a nostalgic wander through a few of them.

Hilda

Once common across Britain, particularly among the working classes in the early 20th century, Hilda comes from the Old Norse hildr, meaning “battle”. A tough name, and there was probably none tougher than Hilda Ogden from Coronation Street. Jean Alexander played her from 1964 to 1987, with her curlers, her flying ducks, and her famous “muriel” on the wall. Hilda and her long-suffering husband Stan, the Ogden's of the street.

The only other Hilda I recall was Hilda Braid, who played Florence in Citizen Smith. Robert Lindsay’s Wolfie Smith shouted “Power to the people!” from revolutionary Tooting. Braid, as Florence, brought a mix of motherly naivety and comic relief. I doubt there are many Hilda's in Tooting these days.

Enid

Enid is one of those names that seems destined for the world of writing. We have a best-selling author, 600 million worldwide and counting, Enid Blyton. From Noddy to The Famous Five, she was a prolific writer who had the output of an AI writer today.

Her books were sometimes banned for being too old-fashioned, too class-conscious, or too politically incorrect for the time, but they were read all the same. Even today, millions still read them, though probably on a Kindle rather than with a torch in a secret smugglers’ cave as the tide comes in.