Sir, – Like Denis O'Donoghue (June 19th) I had a parent whose "favoured brand" of cigarettes was Sweet Afton. In my case it was my mother, but what I find interesting in retrospect is not that most adults smoked back then, but that when my mother sent me to the local shop, even as a small schoolboy, I could ask for "Ten Afton, please" and be sold them without question.
The good news for me is that I never smoked in my life and my mother did give up cigarettes, for Lent, in 1977.
Actually I had then been reading Maeve Binchy’s column in this newspaper describing her own successful but difficult attempt to quit smoking. Although I told my mother about Maeve’s difficulty, she herself found quitting relatively easy and has still survived, thank goodness. – Yours, etc,
FRANK DESMOND,
Evergreen Road,
Cork.
Sir, – I’m pretty sure that the trophy awarded by the GAA to the Munster intermediate hurling champions is still known as the Sweet Afton Cup, a perpetual trophy first awarded in 1951.
In any event, I doubt if anyone under the age of 40 has smoked that particular brand of unfiltered cigarettes. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL O’RIORDAN,
Stamer Street,
Dublin 8.