Woodbine cigarettes

[kenfozzy]

I used to prefer Woodbines to Mum and Dads Parkdrive. They would not smoke Woodbine but I did not refuse the Parkdrive when offered. Does anyone remember 'Dominoes'? Four for sixpence and if you were lucky the shop keeper used to put a few matches in with them. These cigs were in an open ended paper pack with the markings of a dominoe on the back. All different.

[saxon51]

Once walked into a Chinese restaurant and asked for 20 No6.

 

Ended walking out with 20 portions of King prawn and mushroom chow mein.

[flyer]

During my army days 1952 nth Africa every now & then we got a supply of cig's fm British customs,the s major would dig his hand in the sack & you got what ever 5 packs his hand could grab, but even we would not smoke those "Pasha"they came during the war and was made fm pure camel dung,we just handed to the locals.

[Elmambo]

We used to collect all thre different fag packets in the 50's, there was a large variety, much more colourful than today. Still got about a hundred of them in a tin somewhere. Do you remember the thin paper packets used just after the war ?

[poppins]

I use to buy 5 woodbines on my way to work every day, the matches were as big as the cigs themselves, my Dad use to roll his own, he used a little gadget that snapped together and the cig came out....funnny I don't recall smelling smoke in the house though, I wonder if the fire place going all the time had anything to do with it .

[Greybeard]

....funnny I don't recall smelling smoke in the house though, I wonder if the fire place going all the time had anything to do with it .

 

I believe I read somewhere that people with a traditional open fireplace suffer far fewer chest complaints, asthma etc., than those with closed solid fuel burners or gas fires. Something to do with the rate of air change in the room I think.

[wwcrazy]

oooo woodbines, takes me back to my childhood, they were my dads smokes. I can smell them now.

[buck]

I don't recall the machines but in the early 50's my dad smoked Woodbine and Mum smoked ParkDrive,little cigs with no tips, they must have killed the throat,did you ever smoke Craven'A'?

I have an old tin sign that say's " For your throat's sake Smoke Craven 'A' they never vary - from the picture it looks like they have tips on.

Craven A were "posh" cigarettes with cork tips to stop the paper sticking to your lip, but they were not filtered. They were considered effeminate at the time. Real men smoked Capstan full strength or Senior Service with no tip. Woodbines were tiny and smoked out in less than five minutes. Old guys used to finish them off with a pin when they got too small to hold with their fingers. Park Drives were the same size but tasted desperate. Everybody smoked. You couldn't see the screen at the pictures sometimes for the smoke. Everybody smoked and died young. We used to blame the works chimney stacks for it.

[buck]

Remember 'Players Weights' and 'Turf' both priced the same as Woodbine's and Park Drive

They were awful. Toward the end of the war when you couldn't find a woodbine to save your life Weights and Turf were about all you could along with a disaster called Pasha made with turkish tobacco. I should have stopped then, but soldiered on till I joined the navy and got all the cigs I could buy duty free. I'vr been quit for years, but the craving comes back now and then. I don't give in to it though. Emphysema reminds me of what I did wrong.

[BLITZER]

I’ve never heard of Meadow Gold, but thinking about the different brands during the second world war brings to mind State Express 333, State Express 555, Sobranie, Passing Cloud, Joysticks (twice the length of ordinary cigs), Woodbines (at one time only available in tens and not in twenties), Park Drive (at one time only available in twenties and not tens), Players Weights, Turf, Sweet Afton (an Irish brand), Sweet Caporal (Canadian version okay, French version absolute crap), Lucky Strike (toasted tobacco), Camel (toasted tobacco), Nosegay (really awful), Players Medium Navy Cut, Capstan Medium, Capstan Full Strength and all the Co-operative Society’s own brands which were produced from their factory in Manchester. And let’s not forget Senior Service, Black Cat (4 extra free), Craven A (which tasted awful if you lit the cork tip while lighting up in a darkened cinema), Stuyvesant and — to bring it to a close — the best of the lot if you were in the RN, and that was the monthly allowance of ‘Tickler’, a roll your own tobacco straight from Virginia and without any mix of the Empire’s tobaccos! At Pompey we could get Tickler machine-rolled with HM Barracks, Portsmouth printed on the cigarette papers.

 

You've just about mentioned all the brands of years ago Peterw,but was'nt it Kensitas that gave "4 for your friends"? I remember in the Navy during WW2

receiving free packets of "Cape to Cairo" and "Martin's" . I'd rather have smoked dried horse manure! I too remember "Tickler tobacco,it was 9p for a sealed half pound tin,and there was also a similar tin for pipe smokers. Duty free cigarettes were a better buy,for me anyway,with 20 players,or Senior Service or Capstan for 6d(two and a half pence). There were also duty free

Woobines(bigger than the normal civvy ones) and they were 20 for 4d(one and a half pence). You may think that was cheap, and by todays prices,they

certainly are,but our pay was crap too. I stopped smoking 45 years ago,one of the best decisions I ever made.