Sir, – The current debate on the regulation of cigarette packaging brings to mind my late father’s favoured brand, Sweet Afton. As a young boy I was very taken by the packet with a portrait of Robert Burns (of whom I knew little at the time), above an image of the Afton river meandering through pleasant meadows against a background of distant, romantic Scottish hills and, printed beneath, the poet’s mellifluous couplet: “Flow gently, sweet Afton among thy green braes, Flow gently, I’ll sing thee a song in thy praise.”
So taken was I by the persuasive design that, when I completed my Leaving Cert and had an income of my own from a summer job, I immediately asserted my independence by going out and buying, yes, a collection of the poems of Robert Burns.
I never smoked Sweet Afton or any other brand of tobacco; an example, I suppose, of the law of unintended consequences or, as Burns put it: “The best-laid schemes o’mice and men gang aft agley”.
Please note that I support any packaging measure that might help to reduce the sale of cigarettes. – Yours, etc,
DENIS O’DONOGHUE,
Countess Grove,
Killarney,
Co Kerry.