I don't believe it !

I don't often feel angry about things these days. Yes, there are
things that annoy me like rising food & energy prices, but these
don't really get my hackles up.

However there was something which almost made me shout out a few
days ago. I was walking along our road to pop a letter into a
postbox, when I saw a woman in her 30s drive by in her car with
two small children sitting in the back - two children under 5.
I was amazed to see her smoking a cigarette while driving ..
her car window was slightly open, but my immediate thought was
about all the cigarette smoke her children would be inhaling.

I've no problem when consenting adults are smoking in a confined
space (in their own car or home). If they wish to kipper
themselves, then that's their choice. But I think that smoking
with children in the same confined space is bordering on child
abuse.

I remember well doing a late evening home visit back in the 70s,
to a family on a Nottingham council estate. Their 6 year old boy
was ill with a bad cough. And sure enough, the poor child did have
a bad cough -- he was lying in a smoke-filled living room. The air
was thick with cigarette smoke, with both mum and dad puffing away o
on their fags. I felt ill myself having to sit for 20 minutes or
so in that fug. My prescription for the kid -- plenty of fresh air.