As I chalk off the decades, I realise I have emerged into an age where the past I grew up in was, in many respects, very different to today.

Take smoking for example; surely the most insane of habits. And I speak as a former addict of the ruddy things.

When I foolishly signed myself up to wasting God knows how much money, damage my health, prematurely age and all the other charming things which come with such an addiction, you, literally, couldn’t walk down the streets without being bombarded with adverts for the things.

Billboards with slashes in purple material (Silk Cut, geddit?) and the enticing gold boxes of Benson and Hedges seemed to be everywhere.

Watch sport and there was every chance cigarette brands were either a title sponsor or, at least, had taken perimeter boards or space in programmes or on vehicles (in the case of motorsport) trying to lure us to the dark side.

We didn’t really think anything of it – it was socially acceptable.

After all, this was an era where you could smoke almost everywhere; the office, cinemas, planes, trains, restaurants and, of course, pubs.

Yes, there was almost nowhere you could go to avoid coming home smelling like the proverbial chimney. Today, of course, you can’t move for vape shops and advertising. But at least standing next to someone vaping doesn’t prompt a full outfit wash as soon as you get home.

I remember having to tip my keyboard up to empty it of all the fag ash which had fallen between the buttons; of having to wait to use the smoking carriage on a train until almost my stop such was the fug of smoke which hung so heavy in it on a busy service; and of pondering the weird nature of a ‘smoking section’ in the cinema when the smoke quite clearly drifted across the auditorium.

It was cheaper too…a box of 20, when I started in the very late 1980s, were about £1.50. For the entry level smoker, you could even buy a box of 10 for, you guessed it, half that price. What are they now? The sharp end of £15?

Not to mention the revolting images which now plaster the outside of the packets reminding you, as if you needed reminding, of the damage they could cause you. All that cleverly-designed packaging now obscured by a cancer-ridden liver.

For reasons which escape me, my friends and I at school decided if we were going to try this smoking game, then rather than cigarettes we thought cigars would be a rather more sophisticated option.

Off we trotted to a local newsagent where, to our surprise, we discovered a Groucho Marx-style cigar was ludicrously priced. So we ended up with a box of Café Crème cigars – tiny little things which came in a rather smart tin box. We bought them - along, of course, with the obligatory packet of extra strong mints.

Concealing ourselves behind the school’s swimming pool one lunchtime (this being back in the day when state schools had such things) we puffed away only to discover they smelt even stronger than regular fags.

Of course, back then, you could quite easily claim you’d been stood/sat next to a smoker to explain away the scent – such was the widespread smoking habit. I’ve never really liked cigars since.

Not, of course, that it stopped me moving onto cigarettes; to my lasting regret. Now I cannot bear the sight or smell of the things. I’ve gone full circle.

For all the fond memories of how things ‘used to be’ – the freedom to smoke willy-nilly is definitely not one of them.