NO FIRE BUT A LOT OF SMOKE
by Anton Wills-Eve
<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/empty/”>Empty</a>
the empty lives of two wartime smokers
NO FIRE BUT A LOT OF SMOKE
“Empty the ashtrays, darling
Get rid of that awful smell
Of cigarette smoke wafting
Out of the windows as well.
I want the whole house empty
No family lives here any more.
Mum puffed her way to a coffin
Cancer showed Dad to the door.
Ok they were both almost ninety
You may say they had a good run.
But not us and the kids, watching
The only thing they ever called fun.
In wartime it calmed their nerves,
Maybe. But they never could stop.
Sixty a day gone on money wasted
In empty bank accounts not a drop,
Of security left for the young ones
Nothing valuable left to bequeath,
Just empty rooms, smelling of fags.
Two graves and a token red wreath”.
AWE
Anton's Ideas 
Both mum and dad smoked. Dad had 5 years of war experience in the heavy artilary and mum slept in the shelter in the garden in the East End during the air raids, she also smoked. All the family smoked although with time some gave up smoking. One day I lit up a cigarette at home, I was 16 years old. There was a drama, but I persevered and the arrangement was If I wanted to smoke OK, but I will not offer you a cigarette – mum logic. On and off I continued, having a break for baby bumps. At the age of 50 I stopped and have not had one since. I always remember mum’s famous words when the British government increased the income tax on cigarettes “What else does an old boy ‘ave (we drop ‘aches in the East end of London) when he don’t ‘ave ‘is fags”. What a wonderful logical thought, a philosphy of life.
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pure London logic, Pat. Both my parents smoked over sixty a day and died of it! But they’d never have got through the war without them. My sister and I just hated the smell. Nothing good goody about us , we’d just had enough.
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