I’ve had a pack of cigarettes sitting in a cupboard for nearly a decade. I was going to return them to the manufacturer with a note saying my father didn’t need them any more having lost a short bout with lung cancer, but acting out of bitterness was never going to be helpful.

Also, I loved a ciggie. The heady smell of a fresh rollie. Sitting in the car with the windows up and a fog of fumes. The sour smell of it clinging to clothes (for years I kept my fathers jumper rolled up to hold that funky aroma), kissing a girl at the underage disco after she had taken a sneaky drag. I liked hanging out with smokers and the comradeship of huddling together like outcasts, knowing it’s a terrible habit but f*ck it, I’m doing it anyway.

Robin Williams (RIP) said in the movie Dead Again “Someone is either a smoker or a nonsmoker. There’s no in-between. The trick is to find out which one you are, and be that”. I know which I am, despite the allure I’m a non-smoker. I liked everything about them except the smoking part.

My father gave up smoking while laying on the bathroom floor. The cancer robbed him of his legs, and then a few weeks later his life. This was his last pack that he never finished.

I gave up my love of a smoke while finishing the pack for him, using a makeshift “smoking device” and gagging at the stink, then photographing the butts. No bitterness, just a little closure.