Cigarette Number 6?

    Okay, it's a well known fact that Patrick McGoohan was once a heavy smoker, I think that's fair to say. But throughout the Prisoner we never see No.6 smoking, as McGoohan's previous character ‘Danger Man’ John Drake, was also a heavy smoker. In fact the only time we do actually see No.6 smoking, is when he is lying on a bunk in his cell in the Jailhouse during ‘Living In Harmony,’ a cigarette he has rolled himself.

   There is of course a previous reference to No.6 being a smoker, that was during the episode of ‘The Schizoid Man.’ No.6 has a particular brand of cigar which he smokes. But we do not actually see No.6 smoke in this episode, as he chokes on his cigar which has been doctored by a length of plastic inside the cigar.

   No.24-Allison in ‘The Schizoid Man’ is a smoker, No.6 lights her cigarette for her. But that was in the privacy of her cottage. And Curtis must have been a smoker, as the cigarette lighter, used by No.6, was in Curtis's blazer pocket!

    As for other citizens, no-one is seen smoking in public, which is strange, because at the time most people smoked in the 1960's, and was something very socially accepted. But to see no-one smoking in the Village helps make the place even more surreal! I cannot believe for one moment that only non-smokers were brought to the village. Nor that upon their arrival in the Village, smokers instantly gave up! So perhaps like No.24-Allison, smokers are confined to doing their smoking in the privacy of their own cottage.

    Smoking in the privacy of their own cottage - now there's something to conjure with. I was a smoker, from the age of 18 until I decided to give up smoking in February 1993, and I gave up just like that. No patches, or nicotine inhalers required, or a therapist!

    Today smoking is no longer socially acceptable, and amongst the worst people to complain about people who smoke, are those who have quit the habit.

    I do not condone smoking, no longer being able to tolerate cigarette smoke myself. But I respect smokers rights to light up cheroot occasionally. However there is a smoking ban in all public buildings and spaces, and smokers are forced to light up outside. I wonder, I wonder just how long it will be before smokers can only light up in the comfort of their own home? This to make a society of the future, a smoking free society - as the Village!

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