JENNI MURRAY: As a lifelong nicotine addict, I’m enraged to see influential celebrities like Kate Moss, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Stella McCartney puffing away

I surprised myself at how angry I felt when I saw that photo of Kate Moss grinning with a half-smoked cigarette on the way to her mouth. What was she thinking?

Whatever happened to her boast a year ago about a healthy new regimen? She had launched one of these increasingly popular “wellness” brands to much fanfare — hers is called Cosmoss — and said, “When I started taking care of myself, things started to change.”

But here the supermodel is smoking again, outside Cecconi’s restaurant in London’s Mayfair, during a family lunch.

It comes after she was pictured last month smoking a vape, a move that suggested she was trying to give up.

But it’s clear that this alternative method of getting a nicotine hit – while I’m not convinced it’s safer – doesn’t satisfy the addiction of the woman once described as “perhaps the greatest smoker of all time.” She’s back with the fags.

Kate is not alone. Last weekend, photos emerged of actress and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge and fashion designer Stella McCartney having lunch outside a chic central London restaurant with a bottle of champagne.

Maybe they were just two powerful and popular young women enjoying each other’s company in the sun. Perhaps a meeting to discuss how they can combine their skills and contacts to create a new, beautifully written and exquisitely dressed project, designed to make us all laugh and love them even more.

But they should know that such restaurants are catnip for photographers. Their photo would be taken. Did they really have to each smoke a post-prandial fag?

You could say that people are not allowed to throw stones in greenhouses. That I, a lifelong nicotine addict, am not allowed to criticize anyone.

I know all about giving in to that oh-so-familiar moment when the meal is over and the long-awaited craving of the sedative drug will provide far more pleasure than any food.

I’ve smoked for longer than I can remember. . . So why am I so furious with these fellow fumers?

I’m angry because these successful women have influence and I don’t want children and young people to ever learn that sense of longing that only nicotine can satisfy. How many girls have looked at beautiful Kate or crazy Phoebe and thought, “Well, she smokes, so that’s cool, and that must be good”?

It’s not okay and no one knows that better than me.

Kate is not alone. Pictures emerged over the weekend of actress and screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge and fashion designer Stella McCartney having lunch outside a chic central London restaurant with a bottle of champagne

Smoking, even outside a restaurant, bothers everyone around you and it’s not just the lungs that suffer. The hole in my foot, which recently sent me to hospital for two weeks, healed well while I was held captive in the ward. The healing slowed down when I got out and was able to smoke again. Smoking damages the blood flow in the legs and feet.

There are those, like 86-year-old painter David Hockney, who swear that their addiction has not done them any harm and has only given them pleasure. They’re wrong. It’s a disgusting habit. It makes you cough. It makes your house smell so bad that your children don’t like to visit. The trick is never to start smoking; if you do, it will hold you in its grip for a lifetime. I lived with two very heavy smokers. Not the women in the family. They disapproved of women’s smoking, calling the habit “cheap” or “common.”

My father and grandfather did it and enjoyed it. One of my earliest memories, around age three, is sniffing my grandfather’s brown fingers and smelling the powerful scent of nicotine. I loved it too.

By the time I turned 15, everyone at school was talking about smoking and how it meant you were an adult. At home I took one of my grandfather’s undiscovered Woodbines and lit it in the garden.

I was violently ill and terribly dizzy, but I persevered. Soon me and a group of good friends were spending our pocket money on a small pack of tipped Benson & Hedges and puffing away behind the bike sheds at school. We were the cool kids. We didn’t know what damage we were doing to ourselves and how long we would remain under tobacco’s spell.

There are those, like 86-year-old painter David Hockney, who swear that their addiction has not done them any harm and has only given them pleasure. They’re wrong. It’s a disgusting habit (File Photo)

Why don’t I just give up? I’ve tried it so many times. I quit completely for the duration of two pregnancies, determined to give both my sons the best start in life.

What was I longing for after bonding and feeding my newborn for the first time? Yes, a cigarette. I said the famous line, “I’ll just take the one.” One inexorably leads to two and there you are again smoking like the proverbial chimney.

With two young boys in the house, I tried so many ways to give up. I paid for the Allen Carr Easyway method of quitting and dutifully attended his group sessions and hypnotherapy. We learned about the power of nicotine – which is said to have a similar addictive effect on the brain as cocaine.

We had to throw our cigarette packs into his fireplace and then, under hypnosis, every time we were offered a cigarette, say, “Thank you, I don’t smoke.”

It worked for a week until my assistant put a package on my desk and said, “For God’s sake, start over.” You’ve been in such a bad mood since you quit.” I rushed to the smoking room at Broadcasting House, where I always said I met the most interesting people.

My father was my role model in many ways. Friendly, honest, hardworking and a smoker. In his early fifties, he spent some time in the hospital for surgery to correct his deafness. He swore this was what pushed him to quit. I know he fooled my mother for years into thinking he had given up. But I knew his dog had the longest and most frequent walks any dog ​​deserved, and his visits to his friend Eric, another smoker, were unusually regular.

In the meantime, he kept Polo mints in business to hide the smell.

Some of the last words my father said to me during his last week in hospice with advanced lung cancer were, “Oh honey, are you carrying a faggot?”

I denied my beloved father his last cigarette and I have never forgiven myself for that. By then it was too late to make any difference and it was the only thing that could give him any pleasure. That’s how hard it is to give up.

So I have every sympathy for Kate, Phoebe and Stella. I just wish they would keep their addiction to themselves. By puffing in public, they arouse young people’s interest in the evil weed. Because believe me, it’s the opposite of cool.