Why I believe in the wisdom of pipe smoking

 

Harold Wilson

(Allen Massie/The Independent) Harold Wilson was rarely seen in public without his pipe. It was part of his persona, like Churchill with his fat cigar. He used it as a prop when he was interviewed on television, taking it out of his pocket, filling it and lighting it, sometimes to give himself time to decide how best to answer a question. If in private he often preferred a cigar, the pipe was employed to enable him to present himself as a reassuring, avuncular figure, a man of the people. You could trust a man with a pipe. Continued