Back in the blazing English summer of 1959, my mother, smoking as usual, was driving my brother and me through the Guildhall Square in Portsmouth, newly restored after the merciless bombing of World War II.
Perched in the back of our black Morris Minor 1000, I observed a series of huge red and yellow posters, dominating the streetscape. The first bore a picture of an ashtray in use, with a smouldering cigarette in it. The last depicted a large brass cremation urn bearing the letters ‘RIP’.
The wording was simple, striking and, as I have found in the long years since, unforgettable.