If there is anything that I hate above all else, it is smoke. Black, choking, all pervading, stenchy, it is the most revolting substance on earth. It is nothing but old fashioned, entirely useless, and utterly repugnant. "There is no smoke without fire" goes the old adage, but the Greek philosopher to whom it is attributed wasn't much of a philosopher.

If you do not believe me you must never have had the experience of attempting to kindle a fire out of damp logs. At first absolutely nothing happens, but once you have wasted a box of matches, something begins to smoulder. Within a moment the 'fire' is smoking thick and fast and the smoke, like a wayward child who will go everywhere except where it has been told to go, refuses to go near the chimney, swirls around the room, serpent like glides into every nook and cranny, until, tired of investigating all the possible corners of one room, it seeps through chinks in the door and gaily penetrates every room in the house.

For all your trouble, however, there is not a spark of fire to be seen. No flame, no glow, no heat. Should you decide that you are a failure, at fire raising and endeavour to extinguish it by pouring water over it, like some monster roused, it will smoke even more. Even the outdoor fires, not the barbecue type, but the sort strangely called 'bonfires' (for I can think of no adjective used to describe an outdoor fire which is further from the truth than 'bon') assisted by fresh air and fresher breezes, are an abomination in smoke.

Luckily for the community at large, bonfires are fast losing their popularity owing to the increasingly high standards of the garbage disposal service provided by the local councils. Unluckily, though, there is still to be found the stygian stoker who has no greater pleasure in life than lighting an enormous bonfire of damp wood, damper paper and defunct plants and grass cuttings - at the bottom of the garden.

I have an octogenarian neighbour who, for most of the year, is a very likeable, unassuming gentleman. Then the bug hits him and he decides that the day for compost holocaust has come. I know that the outcome will be the most evil smelling smoke and I do not anticipate the occasion with any joy. But when the dread day dawns, what happens? He asks for my assistance! I drag myself mournfully to his house and, making it appear that I am really enjoying every moment of it, drag load after load of damp smelly 'fuel' down to the fast growing heap at the bottom of the garden....

At last he decides that we have had enough and with a despondent heart I light match after match, until finally the heap begins to smoke - not to burn, oh no, just to smoke. The smoke stings my eyes, chokes my nostrils, paralyses my lungs, irritates my throat. The more I prod, searching for a flame, the more the smoke swirls around me. My eyes stream with water, the handkerchief covering my nose and mouth restricts my breathing but does little to prevent the noxious, thick, black, pungent, choking smoke from nauseating me. Oh! How I hate smoke.

A. Thurnham, 5A.