When in Year 8, I wrote the oh-so-memorable words “You Smell, You look like a chimney, you infect my breathing space, and then, you die” on an anti-smoking poster we were all commanded to design. At the time I didn’t know one person in my year that smoked and had never been really bothered much by other people’s smoke.

Year 9 now, and you can’t move for fag smoke. Seems to be the popular year for volunteering for lung cancer. And it’s the toilets that those “cool” girls use. Do they count as a public place? Well it’s where smokers bother me most.

I mean I can walk down the street past them thinking, “you obviously have a death-wish but I don’t really care” on seeing a smoker, but I really really hate it when they decide to ‘infect my breathing space’.

Ok. So why don’t I just go someplace else? For a start, I shouldn’t have to anyway, I mean, if I really want to hang out in smoke-free loos I should be able to, shouldn’t I? As it happens me and mates spend up 20 minutes of our lunchtime in there because

A) The boys who sit in the cloakroom get on our nerves
B) We’re not welcome in any other part of the school
C) It’s too hot or cold to go outside
D) We need to have a ‘quiet word’ with each other
E) There’s a mirror. Girls tend to love those things.

So, basically, our bogs, however scabby they are, are needed.

And staying in them when there’s smokers about (and there always is) means our health is at risk AND we stink of smoke. Not nice.

And since there aren’t any windows in the bogs, once the faggers have been through, the smell and smoke lingers, all day even, as if to spite us.

THIS IS NOT FAIR. And even if a ban on smoking were brought in, the smokers of my school bogs would still be there – they haven’t been caught y
et, have they?