Pipe Smokers Alive - and Well?

When AB was forced to give up his pipe, we'd thought that was it. A sight that used to be universal had finally died out. The Last Pipe Smoker in Britain had gone. It was amusing to discover there were still a few in Germany (see his April post), but obviously it was only going to be a matter of time before the foreigners caught up. But then, yesterday, we were on a boat at Sandford Lock, and realised the lock-keeper was smoking a pipe! What's more, when challenged, he revealed that one of the other Thames lock-keepers is a pipe-smoker as well. There is still a corner of rural England on the backwaters of the Thames where this ancient art continues. We were delighted, but I was too shy to take a photograph for anthropological purposes.