Campaigners tell smokers to give up deadly addiction

But these days, many smokers seem to have got the message and given up. Perhaps that is not surprising, given the threat to health and the high cost of buying a packet.

No Smoking Day continues to be an annual event. In the past, Oxford Mail photographers were always out and about recording those promoting the campaign.

Picture 1 shows Kerry Cole, 16, left, and Mary Glaspole, 12, encouraging everyone to ‘stub it out’ in Oxford in 1995.

Adam Baker, 10, had a similar message in Picture 2 in 1998. He had created a poster which had won him a prize in a competition.

He had a particular reason to spread the word. His mum apparently “smoked like a chimney!”. She refused to be in the picture for some reason!

Oxford United players were also happy to join in. In Picture 3, we see, left to right, Mike Ford, Phil Whitehead and Matt Elliott tying up a giant makeshift cigarette on the Manor Ground pitch in 1996.

Oxford United players campaign against smoking (Image: Oxford Mail)

Pupils at Rush Common School in Abingdon, in Picture 4, went to great lengths to say what they thought, encouraging everyone to ‘Take the Plunge, No Smoking Day’.

It must have taken some time to create the letters and make sure they were in the right order when they got in the pool.

Children at Hailey Primary School, near Witney, in Picture 5, were on safer ground, getting a lecture on the dangers of smoking from health visitors in 1991.

Members of SASH (Students for Action on Smoking and Health) in Oxford adopted a different approach in 2000, displaying 330 names and photographs of people who had given up smoking or died from its effects. Chairman Patrick Mackerras is seen in Picture 6.

The first No Smoking Day was on Ash Wednesday 1984 and now takes place on the second Wednesday in March.

Every year, the campaign is promoted with a short phrase. In 2010, this theme was ‘Break free’, encouraging smokers to break free from the chains of cigarettes and give up. The 2011 theme was ‘Time to quit?’

Research following the 2009 campaign found that one in 10 smokers quit on No Smoking Day. In 2011, Parliamentary notices for the campaign reported that almost 750,000 smokers attempted to quit.

The pictures were taken by Oxford Mail photographers Dave Fleming, George Reszeter, Damian Halliwell and Richard Cave.