I only ever remember one person in our family, an uncle of mine, who smoked a pipe. We have no photos of him, nor of me with a child's pipe for blowing bubbles.
Our prompt picture shows a former Prime Minister (Harold Wilson) well known for his pipe. In 1965 he was British Pipe Smokers Council's Pipe Smoker of the Year.
In 2013 the BBC ran a tribute to mark the 50th anniversary of him becoming the leader of the Labour Party. It was strange to hear that producers of the programme told guests to play down Wilson's pipe smoking habit.
Perhaps they should have listened to Albert Einstein.
Einstein - with his pipe
Einstein once said, "I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgement in human affairs."
The list of famous pipe smokers is endless and includes artists and literary figures. Van Gogh painted a self-portrait of course.
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| Van Gogh - Self-portrait with pipe (Sept-Nov 1886) |
Renoir's painting of Claude Monet reading showed him enjoying a pipe.
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| Claude Monet Reading - 1873 |
Perhaps you do not know that there is even an illustration of the Mona Lisa smoking a pipe.
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| La Joconde fumant la pipe (Arthur Sappeckikus 1883) |
"The Man with the Twisted Lip" appeared in The Strand Magazine in December 1891. I'm sure you will recognise the figure involved. It's elementary after all.
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| Sherlock Holmes (By Albert Sidney Paget) |
The original caption was "The pipe was still between his lips."
But one of my favourite characters has always been Popeye The Sailor Man
To see pipe smokers that have inspired others check out the links at Sepia-Saturday-235.
