Posted by Ian E-N on August 11, 2006 at 11:14:22 from 148.88.192.240 user IanEN.
"Further to our invigorating recent item on the Journal of the Pipe Club of Lebanon, reader Ian Edmondson wonders if the following "classic example of pipe smoking in a conflict situation" was not worthy of consideration. "I filled a pipe, lit it ... and set out across the open country towards that line that might or might not be the trenches of the Russians," wrote this paper's very own Arthur Ransome on crossing the Estonian border in 1919. "I puffed pretty hard at my pipe, burning my tongue but producing lots of smoke. Nobody, I reasoned, was going to shoot at a man walking slowly across and obviously enjoying his tobacco." A lesson, we'd say, for us all."