Giving up cigarettes was the right decision, but it’s amazing who you can meet in a smoking area, writes Moreen Simpson.
Three-year non-smoking anniversary.
Covid a-comin’ in early 2020. Increasingly breathless at a Steve Martin show in Glasgow, I hidnae the puff to puff between the restaurant and the venue.
A baltic winter, I often couldna be fashed frozzlin’ in the garden for a few infusions of nicotine. Gradually, and remarkably easily – given I’d been addicted since a teenager – I cut down, then out.
The only things I missed were summer sooks in the garden. But, fit a relief to no longer have to interrupt meals and drinks oot by slinkin’ aff to hover in a smoky fug wi’ other addicts, increasingly younger than me.
Rarely did I meet a peer wifie of my age. If I did, we’d be coughin’ and pechin’ too much to communicate. Except for… ah, yes, that unforgettable evening in the late 1990s, a time when my second hubby worked for media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who staged a super-posh cocktail party every Christmas.
This particular year, the do was in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Losh, was Mo ower the moon wi’ excitement at bein’ shooder to shooder wi’ some famous slebs. Lashed oot at a Cults boutique on a sparkly top. Sippin’ glam cocktails and nibblin’ funcy canopes, I reckoned I’d gone to starry heaven. So, fit else could I desire? A cigarette, of course.
As my black-affronted man tutted his disapproval, I set aboot findin’ oot far I could puff, a waiter directing me to the “designated area”. Oot an emergency exit, doon a dark corridor, through a heavy door to a deserted alley. I felt like an al’ tramp.
However, a couple of drags in, the door opens and this vision of glamour and joy emerges. Wonderful big, wavy hair, jacket way oot-glitterin’ mine, smiley face, husky but commanding voice: “How delightful to have the company of a smoker! Those inside are sooo boring.”
Bumping into a baroness
I was gobsmacked. None other than former Tiller Girl, then speaker of the Commons, the dramatically delightful Baroness Betty Boothroyd.
When I heard she’d died this week, aged 93, every detail of that meeting came exploding back. We were like two wifies across a garden wall, deep in superb goss, as only smokers can be.
Then, a spooky coincidence. Telling her I worked for a local newspaper, she asked if I’d do a story about her search for women from code-breaking Bletchley Park during World War Two, in order to present them with a medal.
Betty Boothroyd calls the Lords to order. Old habits and all that. RIP. pic.twitter.com/pw4BJimjAE
— Alex Andreou (@sturdyAlex) February 27, 2023
Guess fit? My auntie Margaret had only recently been allowed to divulge that she’d been one of them. Baroness BB was so chuffed about tracking down another Bletchley girl, we moved on to our second fags.
Then comes a voice from the newly opened door: “Well, Mo and Betty. Funcy meeting you two here!” None other than Aiberdeen’s ain Mickey Gove. Wid ye credit it? And, yes, auntie Margaret was delighted to get her medal.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
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