Last summer, I was sat outside a local eaterie and a young chick (can I say that?) engaged me in conversation. At first, she thought I was some kind of meet and greet man for that establishment, but no, merely a customer. Then I filled my pipe with flake and lit it - she was utterly fascinated by the whole thing - and said that I was only the second person ever she'd seen smoking a pipe. That last kind of shocked me, I mean, London, big place, so few of us per square mile.
UK pipe smokers
- Thread starter CurlingWhisps
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@MisterBadger I like to smoke my clays in churchyards; my favourites being Cromford & Old Brampton.This virtual world of pipesmagazine.com concentrates us all - maybe a dozen of us non-expatriate Brits - into one single, intimate, virtual space. The real world, by comparison, is the acme of desolation, especially if you live out on the sticks as I do. other day, walking through the market in Ludlow, I actually saw a passer-by smoking a pipe. Population 10,000 and I've lived here six years, and that was a first for me. Thing is, you won't see me smoking a pipe when walking around the town, as I prefer to give it my full attention - so I'll sit outside somewhere, like in a pub garden or a churchyard, or I'll smoke at home or when taking a break at work on the farm (where out of the dozen people I might see in a day aside from visitors, I'm the only one who smokes anything at all). How many of us, I wonder, are invisible in this way?
I quite enjoy solitude when smoking, and I wonder how many others in the town are pipe smokers I simply don't know about for the same reason. Maybe I should advertise. But here's another thing: in these forums, talk of politics, religion and such is strongly discouraged and - though I am a religious man and a political animal, I like the feeling of peace when I'm floating off into the empyrean on a cloud of sublimated nicotine: much as I might rejoice at first if someone asked to join me and took out his pipe and lit up, I would dread him starting a conversation about what's wrong with the world and how it should be put right (unless, of course, I happened to agree with what was said).
- Having stocked up on G&H twists I am looking forward to treating the visitors to the Victorian working farm next season to the full ritual of slicing, rubbing, stuffing, and smoking. If the likes of us are going to be treated as breathing museum exhibits, I'm dam' well going to act like one
Oh, and I hadn't heard anyone call a girl a chick since the late 1970s. Thank you for reminding me
I've heard that British miners used to chew the twist first, and then dry it out for their pipes. Might want to try that, in the interest of authenticity!- Having stocked up on G&H twists I am looking forward to treating the visitors to the Victorian working farm next season to the full ritual of slicing, rubbing, stuffing, and smoking. If the likes of us are going to be treated as breathing museum exhibits, I'm dam' well going to act like one
Oh, and I hadn't heard anyone call a girl a chick since the late 1970s. Thank you for reminding me
I've been doing that now and again with GH sweet cherry twist, dry overnight and smoke next day - it's pretty good!
@BingBong I met a couple of clay pipe smokers at the Sealed Knot / English Civil War Battle of Nantwich event last weekend & shared my pipe with 2 others.
Does anyone make clays nowadays? I was looking a while ago and Wilsons seemed to have stopped.
@BingBong A shame! If they still made clays I'd probably be their biggest customer.
Thinking of booking a clay pipe making workshop at Ironbridge this year:
Clay Pipe Making Workshop with James Ashwell
Have a go at making some traditional clay pipes in a range of styles and shapes in this workshop led by heritage pipe maker James Ashwell.
www.ironbridge.org.uk
I love to get my Pipe Club of London quarterly newsletters here in the states. Also, the PCOL’s Pipe of the Year is always a treat.
Simon of LCSBriars is located in London and makes incredible pipes. Follow him on YouTube under London Calling With Simon. There are also a few other good YouTube content providers from the UK.
Carry on, mates.
Mike
Simon of LCSBriars is located in London and makes incredible pipes. Follow him on YouTube under London Calling With Simon. There are also a few other good YouTube content providers from the UK.
Carry on, mates.
Mike
Of course you do! As my wife sings, "Everyone has a place in the choir, some sing low, some sing high"
That sort of reminds me of what my old church pastor used to say about my singing. "Even a crow can sing".
I’m from Windsor in the UK but have lived on the island of Cyprus for the last twenty five years where there’s a pipe club that has just short of 500 members, if they are all active members, pipe smokers I couldn’t say. I know a dozen or so members did and perhaps still do meet regularly in Nicosia and Larnaka.
On Monday last I met two pipe smokers in Larnaka, granted I was in a tobacconists but most of his walk in trade is in cigars while the pipe smokers order by phone and use a taxi delivery service as they know what they want if it’s in stock, so it’s not often I see a pipe smoker there. Of the two pipe smokers I did meet one was a Cypriot returning to pipe smoking after twenty years equipping in readiness for the venture while the other was a Irishman on holiday interested in having a look around who both the tobacconist and I asked to pop into Petersons to ask them to start resupplying pipe tobacco to Cyprus again as Peterson pipe tobacco doesn’t exist here along with most other pipe tobaccos that stopped during the banking crisis earlier this century, before that Cyprus had an amazing cornucopia of world pipe tobaccos to choose from.
There’s another pipe smoker in the rural village where I live who’s turned to growing his own tobacco, he’s had reasonable success but like the tobacco my grandfather used to grow in the UK it’s extremely powerful stuff and he keeps experimenting trying to tone it down.
Some years ago while running a training course on contract management at the Nicosia Hilton now Landmark Hotel I skipped lunch in favour of a poolside smoke, two young women were swimming there and they commented on my pipe smoking with one saying it reminded her of an uncle which was a major generational improvement on the usual comments I get about reminding people of their grandfather
I know there are pipe smokers there. But I get the impression people are more likely to smoke in private these days for some reason.
Yeah you can say young chick. It didn't come across as insulting or dismissive.
I have talked to a surprising number of young chicks because of the pipe smoking. The thing that shocks me isn't that it happens, but that these days they're more likely to show interest in smoking a pipe and not just complimenting the smell.
I think the biggest problem these days with pipe smoking is how addicted to convenience everyone is. They don't want to dedicate time or work into their pleasure. They want it pre packaged. Though whenever life gets too bloated in a direction like that there is often the opposite and equal reaction. Once people see that taking the time out to sit with a pipe and enjoy it is the perfect remedy to the modern malaise of now now now thinking. Well it could make a big come back.
