3 OCTOBER 1941, Page 4

So officers of the Royal Air Force must not smoke

pipes in public—and public, within the meaning of the regulation, includes railway-carriages and cinemas. Lord Baldwin, as Prime Minister, could smoke a pipe wherever he liked, and did. Mr. Churchill without a cigar would hardly be recognised in the picture-papers. But the men who risk their lives for us daily and nightly, mostly cannot afford cigars, mostly cannot get cigarettes and are now forbidden to smoke pipes except up the kitchen-chimney. From the serene detachment of a non-smoker I can only see the regulation as pointless and wantonly irritating at a time when life has quite enough irritations as it is. * * *