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by Anthony ‘Flyer’ Robinson
On the 1st July 2007 the laws governing smoking in England are changing for good or bad.
As I smoked way back in my youth, I can see some of the points of the non-smoker and the smoker. I don't fully understand the new laws, that's if anyone does as some of the parts seem very strange. Among a list read on the television yesterday 28th June 2007 was one... that it will be illegal to smoke on railway stations! Many are now unmanned and have only a glass type bus shelter (back and roof and no sides) on the platform and out of the towns they can have winds blowing most of the year and the only thing that may be around some of the country ones are cows. In years past many of the Hotels and Public Houses had rooms that were used for different functions and many had signs on the doors or etched into the window glass telling the costumer of the rooms use. Some of the signs were Tap Room, Public Bar, Lounge, plus in some of the larger establishments a room for ladies to drink. Some were only used on Market Days these were for the Bankers who came from the banks in the larger towns and worked there for the day taking monies from the farmers as their stock was sold or loaned them money for buying, returning at the end of the day with the takings to be banked.
On one of the signs it stated that the room was “SMOKE ROOM” - the room where people who wished to smoke as they drank went as the rest of the building was what could be called smoke free. As I understand it, the new law even outlaws these rooms which some of the older Hotels and Public Houses still have. When this new law comes into practice people who wish to smoke have to leave and go out side if they are in a building used by the public. If people drinking are doing this and they are not allowed to take their drinks with them what is there to stop the drinks being tampered with? Worth the risk? Personally I don't think so. This means that a night out then becomes who can smoke and who can't because it's their turn to watch the drinks that have been left by their friends.
This brings me to a piece of information published on the Winteringham Web Site from the pages of the Parish book dated 6th January 1685 - that the people of Winteringham could not smoke in the village streets or a fine of TWO SHILLINGS would be given every time they were caught.
Winteringham people Three Hundred and Twenty Two years back had already found that one type of public smoking could be rather costly. If like many of these old laws this one has not been rescinded (taken off the books) and technically still in force HOW MANY of Winteringham`s population past and present have and are still breaking the law? Oops I was one of them.
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