A My Weekly Health Feature about GASP

"I started smoking at university," confesses Cecilia Farren, founder of GASP, a highly successful mail order company stocking everything and anything connected with stopping - or not starting - smoking. "I never gave a thought to the health risks, even though my first job was researching lung diseases."

Cecilia admits that she only began to think about the harsh realities of smoking when she was on holiday in America a couple of years later. "I was having a cigarette while waiting for a coach when a woman asked me not to smoke as I was harming her health. I was astounded! I felt like a social leper."

Cecilia stubbed out her cigarette - only to light up another when the woman's coach arrived. "However, I stopped smoking soon after I returned home and started training as a Health Promotion Officer," she recalls, although she admits that she didn't stop because of concern for her own health or for the health of other people - but because her boyfriend hated the smell of cigarette smoke!

"I wonder if he realises what he started," laughs Cecilia, who, as well as running GASP, is also a consultant to anti-smoking projects all over the United Kingdom and as far afield as Finland, Spain, Australia and Azerbaijan.

Cecilia became an anti smoking campaigner over twenty years ago, when she was working as a Health Promotion Officer in Bristol. "I wanted something that would test my capabilities - so my boss asked me to look after smoking. I immediately set up GASP, a pressure group for non-smokers, as I realised from my own reaction in America that people's attitudes to smoking can be changed simply by promoting non-smokers' rights to breathe clean air.

"Nowadays, smoking is a minority activity but, back in 1980, things were very different and we did some fairly outrageous things to highlight the plight of non-smokers. One of our most effective stunts was 'The Gasping Gourmet Gas Mask Award' which we awarded to a restaurant that not only did not have a non-smoking area but actually handed out cigars at the end of a meal! That was when people started to really notice us and we even appeared on national television."

Then, just when the group was beginning to get its anti-smoking message across, Cecilia found herself in trouble at work - because she was too good at her job! "The then-Chairman of the Health Authority said that I was to stop doing all this anti-smoking work," exclaims Cecilia.

"Bristol is the home of Imperial Tobacco and he was worried about the long-term effect that my campaign could have on jobs in the area - whereas I was worried about the long-term effects smoking could have on people's health! From that moment on, GASP was no longer a part of the NHS and I became a militant advocate for smoke-free enclosed air - but only in my spare time!

"Then research was published which showed that non-smoking wives of smokers were 30% more likely to get lung cancer than non-smoking wives of non-smokers. We used this evidence for a GASP leaflet about passive smoking and, after this was featured in a newspaper, GASP's phone lines were jammed with requests for the leaflet."

Following this astounding success, Cecilia turned GASP into a small business, selling booklets, leaflets, training materials and anti-smoking devices, such as models of a smoker's lungs. "The right resources can make such a difference to someone's chances of successfully stopping smoking," says Cecilia, who adds that, with an ever-expanding catalogue of over 175 items, GASP now provides 'smoke free solutions' to teachers and health workers all over the United Kingdom.

"I am passionately anti-smoking but not anti-smoker," says Cecilia, who reveals that her mother died of smoking-related complications to an existing disease. "No matter how much I tried to persuade her to stop, she kept on puffing away and she had her last cigarette only minutes before she slipped into a coma. Cigarettes are so terribly, terribly addictive."

Cecilia travels to schools all over the country spreading the 'no smoking' message." Children and young people choose not to smoke for very similar reasons to the reasons people choose to stop smoking - financial, health, appearance, kissability…" says Cecilia, who has two student non-smoking, daughters. "I find it very effective to pass a tissue scented with the tar from the smoke of just one cigarette round a classroom and ask if anyone would like to kiss someone who smells like this!"

Cecilia adds that there are usually a number of reasons someone decides to stop - but there is usually one reason that tips the scales in favour of not smoking. "The catalyst might be the long-term health risks, an annoying cough, the high cost of cigarettes or seeing someone suffering from a smoking-related disease," she says.

However, having been a smoker herself, Cecilia realises only too well how difficult it is to stop smoking. "When you reach the stage where you want to stop more than you want to continue, set a quit date - and stick to it," advises Cecilia, who recommends using nicotine replacement therapy or other proven medications in the early days. "This will help your body handle its craving for nicotine while you relearn being a non-smoker - and re-discover all the advantages of breathing clean air."

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