Durham E-Theses The persistence of memory: history, family and smoking in a Durham coaleld village THIRLWAY, JANE,FRANCES How to cite: THIRLWAY, JANE,FRANCES (2015) The persistence of memory: history, family and smoking in a Durham coaleld village, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11210/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 ABSTRACT The persistence of memory1: history, family and smoking in a Durham coalfield village _____________________________________________________________ Frances Thirlway This thesis is an ethnographic account of smoking practices in a former mining village in North East England which I call Sleetburn. My aim was to understand the link between poverty and smoking but my fieldwork led to wider issues of class and stigma as it became clear that smoking took place in the context of wider values. I start by contrasting prevailing values in the village with the middle-class privileging of social and geographical mobility, the denigration of close family ties as atavistic and the importance attached to ‘raising aspirations’ and discuss how local people negotiated these contradictions. Sleetburn had a long history of mobility but circular ‘there and back again’ mobilities were misrecognised as stasis. A close network of family and friends provided practical support, extending in space across neighbouring villages and across time in layers of memory which overlaid the visible space. Historically informed expectations of jobs were low; people had ordinary aspirations to happiness and security and reclaimed agency by carving out spaces of autonomy at work. Education provided little reward historically and was therefore ‘something to get through’. Imaginable futures depended on what was visible locally; social mobility through education led to geographical mobility and was easily obscured or coloured by emotional loss. In this wider context, smoking carried little stigma but was tied into emotional memories of parental smoking which made it difficult for continuing and indeed ex-smokers to distance themselves definitively from cigarettes, with relapses common even after many years cessation. The two main factors which facilitated smoking cessation were mobility, which created distance from parental memories, and urgent health threats to self or family which remade the once friendly and familiar cigarette as alien and dangerous. Those who continued to smoke were not so much ‘hardened smokers’ as discouraged quitters in a community where chronic ill-health (often linked to occupational exposures) was a commonplace for smokers and never-smokers alike. 1 Salvador Dali (1931) The persistence of memory. 1 The persistence of memory: history, family and smoking in a Durham coalfield village ______________________________________________ Frances Thirlway Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Department of Anthropology / School of Medicine, Pharmacy & Health Durham University 2015 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT 7 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 9 HOW THIS STUDY CAME ABOUT 9 CLASS AND MORAL WORTH 13 UNIQUE CONTRIBUTION 15 CHOOSING A FIELD SITE 16 THESIS OUTLINE 18 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 22 CONTINUED SMOKING IN HIGH-INCOME COUNTRIES 22 A MARKER FOR DISADVANTAGE? 24 UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIAL GRADIENT IN SMOKING 26 TIME AND THE SMOKER 28 THE FAILURE TO QUIT 29 PHYSICAL ADDICTION 30 PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS 30 SMOKING TO COPE WITH ADVERSITY 31 COLLECTIVE SOCIAL BEHAVIOURS 32 FAMILY INFLUENCES 33 ETHNIC MINORITIES AND INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS 34 SMOKING AND CLASS 34 WISDOM SITS IN PLACES 36 THE ROLE OF ETHNOGRAPHY 38 MINING VILLAGES AS MATTER OUT OF PLACE 39 THE CLASSIC ENGLISH VILLAGE 39 THE VILLAGE AS OTHER 40 THE VILLAGE IN AND OUT OF TIME 41 THE LIMINAL MINING VILLAGE 44 COLLECTIVE VALUES IN THE WORKING-CLASS VILLAGE 45 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 47 3 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 48 A RESTRICTED VIEW 48 ARRIVAL STORY 48 THE VILLAGE UNBOUND(ED) 51 ANTHROPOLOGY AT HOME? 54 SITUATED BY AGE AND GENDER 56 CLASS AND STIGMA 58 LOCATING SLEETBURN IN TIME 62 HISTORICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 63 SOCIAL MEMORY 63 TELLING STORIES 65 LOCATING THE SELF 68 FROM INTERVIEWS TO RELATIONSHIPS 69 LEARNING TO LISTEN 69 REPRESENTATION IN THE RELATIONAL FIELD 71 EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPES 74 CHAPTER 4: THERE AND BACK AGAIN 78 ORIGIN STORIES: THE BIRTH OF THE VILLAGE 80 DEPARTURES IN THE DEPRESSION YEARS 82 TRANSFERS ‘DOWN SOUTH’ 84 MATTER OUT OF PLACE 87 MEAN INDUSTRIAL HOUSING 88 DURHAM’S MURDERED VILLAGES 89 THE MOUSE THAT ROARED 91 THERE AND BACK AGAIN 93 GOING INTO SERVICE 93 THE ARMED FORCES 95 DAILY MOBILITIES 97 WORKING AWAY AND COMING BACK 98 CLASSED MOBILITIES 99 CHAPTER 5: A RICH EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE 101 NATIVES AND STRANGERS 101 INCOMERS AND HOUSING 102 DISRUPTIVE STRANGERS 103 MARRYING INTO SLEETBURN 105 SHARED CULTURAL PRACTICES 106 4 THE LIMITS OF SHARED CULTURE 109 NETWORKS OF FAMILY AND NEIGHBOURLY SUPPORT 112 FAMILY HELP WITH HOUSING 112 FINDING A JOB 113 SHARING CHILDCARE 115 ELDERLY CARE 116 THE INTERGENERATIONAL FAMILY 117 THE LIMITS OF FAMILY 119 CLOSENESS AS STIGMA 120 EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPES 121 CHAPTER 6: ASPIRATIONS FILTERED THROUGH EXPERIENCE 125 EMPLOYMENT 125 ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK 125 ORDINARY ASPIRATIONS 127 SKILLED WORK AND AUTONOMY 128 MINERS AND ASPIRATIONS 130 FACTORY WORK AND WOMEN’S AUTONOMY 133 RECOVERING AGENCY THROUGH EMOTIONAL LABOUR 135 CONTRASTING SOCIAL MOBILITIES 137 EDUCATION 137 THE PRIMACY OF WORK 139 SECONDARY SCHOOL: A DIVISIVE LEGACY 141 IMAGINABLE FUTURES 143 CHAPTER 7: SMOKING: THE ABSENCE OF STIGMA 147 FAMILY SMOKING MEMORIES 147 HISTORICAL SMOKING PATTERNS 147 MEMORABLE BRANDS 149 CASE STUDY: EMBASSY REGAL 152 A LONG TOBACCO HISTORY 153 SHARED STARTING STORIES 155 STARTING AGE 155 OBTAINING CIGARETTES 159 PARENTAL INFLUENCES ON STARTING TO SMOKE 159 5 THE ABSENCE OF STIGMA 162 CONTEMPORARY SMOKING PATTERNS 162 SMOKING WITHOUT STIGMA 165 WOMEN AND ACCEPTABLE SMOKING 170 CHAPTER 8: RESISTING OR QUITTING 173 THE MOVE TO ECONOMY BRANDS 173 HAND-ROLLED CIGARETTES 174 ILLICIT TOBACCO 176 MANAGING INTAKE 178 WORKING AROUND SMOKE-FREE SPACES 181 NEW SMOKING PRACTICES 184 SMOKING IN PRIVATE SPACES 187 BREAKING AWAY FROM SMOKING 189 MOBILITY AND SMOKING CESSATION 189 SPECIFIC HEALTH PROBLEMS 191 HOW PEOPLE HAVE QUIT 193 CHAPTER 9: CONTINUING TO SMOKE 198 WILLINGNESS TO QUIT 198 THE DENIAL OF RISK 199 THE DANGERS OF QUITTING 201 COMPLEX DISEASE CAUSATION 202 ILL-HEALTH AS UNREMARKABLE 204 THE HEALTHY BODY 209 ABILITY TO QUIT 210 DEPENDENCE 210 SERIOUS HEALTH PROBLEMS AND NOT QUITTING 213 PARENTAL INFLUENCES 214 CHAPTER 10: CONCLUDING REMARKS 218 BIBLIOGRAPHY 224 6 STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank friends in Sleetburn and the surrounding area for their kindness and generosity in including me in the life of the village and welcoming me into their homes. I would also like to extend my thanks to the staff, users, officers and/or members (as appropriate) of Sleetburn chapel, church, hairdressing salon, lunch club, post office, primary school, shop, village hall and working men’s club for many enlightening conversations. This PhD was made possible by a Wellcome Trust PhD studentship awarded to me by Professor Jane Macnaughton and I am extremely grateful to her for this opportunity. I would also like to thank her and my other supervisors Dr Andrew Russell and Dr Sue Lewis for their advice and encouragement over the past four years. Finally, I would like to thank my partner and my family for their patience and support, particularly during the latter stages of my research. 8 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This thesis is an ethnographic account of smoking practices in a former mining village in North East England which I call Sleetburn, looking in particular at the factors which played a part in the decisions of current, former and never-smokers to start or to stop smoking. My aim was to reach an increased understanding of the correlation between poverty and smoking; however my fieldwork led to wider issues of class and stigma as I identified moral values applied to villages such as Sleetburn which included the privileging of social and geographical mobility, the denigration of close family ties as atavistic and a call to ‘raise aspirations’ along particular lines in employment and education. HOW THIS STUDY CAME ABOUT Following a degree in politics and philosophy, my career in the public and voluntary sectors involved issues of social policy and social inequality. Eventually I moved to a research team looking at health behaviours and became interested in the causal mechanisms between poverty and smoking. I took up a PhD studentship funded by the Wellcome Trust, based jointly in the Centre for Medical Humanities (School of Medicine & Health) and the Medical Anthropology Research Group. My study has therefore been an interdisciplinary one, examining a public health problem from an anthropological viewpoint but incorporating relevant literature from other social sciences. Tobacco is one of the world’s greatest causes of preventable death; worldwide tobacco use causes 5.4 million deaths each year, a figure which is expected to rise to 8 million by 20302.