Letter: Non-smokers resent insults

Sir: Why must smokers like Jo Brand (21 December), who seem to be perfectly civilised in other respects, seek to justify the nuisance their addiction causes to the non-smoking majority by insulting us?

Are we really "po-faced" or, as recently suggested elsewhere, "health Nazis", simply because we dislike being forced to breath foul-smelling, carcinogenic smoke and to have our clothes and hair made to stink of it?

I suspect that many people who enjoy smoking simply do not understand how unpleasant it is for those of us who do not. Personally, I would as soon spend an evening in a garage full of diesel fumes.

I wish Jo and her fellow smokers joy of their habit. All I ask is that they have the basic courtesy to respect my preference not to share it.

JANET RUSSELL

Tollesbury, Essex