nick manho

in the old days there used to be special shops for gentlemen's accessories (there probably still are down back alleys in central london). they catered for the aristocrat and the wannabe aristo. i think democracy killed them off or something. culled them, anyway. these shops sold snuff and cuff-links and stuff. all the things a posh guy needed to get him through the day.

but there was another class of guy around at the time and he had his needs too. he had his accessories, his personal requisites. so i'm going to start an occasional series here at manholand called, andy's accessories:

andy's accessories #1: the woodie



as you can see in the photo above, even when andy was bawling out flo he never, ever, had a fag out of his gob. andy, being from the north east of england, wouldn't have called them fags, though, he would have called them "tabs". "gizza tab, pet." andy's cigarette of choice would have almost certainly been this one:



the woodbine, or "woodie" as it was called on the street, was made by a bristol tobacco company called w.d & h.o wills, and was the most popular working class cigarette through the 30s, 40s and 50s. filter tips and health fascists killed off the woodbine. many working class guys don't even smoke now so they stuff even more of the cholesterol-laden garbage they eat into their gobs and die of obesity instead of lung cancer.

woodies came in packs of 20, 10 and 5. you could even ask the guy in the shop to break open a pack and sell you a "loosie". imagine, buying one cigarette? what would andy have used to light his fag? well, you'll have to wait till next time to find out.