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This is what cigarettes do to you, warns anti-smoking campaigner hours before her death
Last updated at 16:52pm on 20.12.07It would have been natural for Maureen Hamilton to have chosen a glamorous picture as the one by which she could be remembered.
Taken 22 years ago, the cool blonde smiles easily for the camera, confident in her beauty and her jet-set lifestyle.
Fast-forward two decades and the picture on the left reveals a very brave but broken woman, all the glitz and glamour pitilessly stripped away by the emphysema caused by her addiction to cigarettes.
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Maureen Hamilton, once a glamorous jetsetter (right) lost her battle against emphysema
It is this second haunting image that 58-year-old Mrs Hamilton was determined the world should remember as she campaigned to shock others into giving up tobacco before it is too late.
Speaking from her sick-bed hours before her death last week, the mother of two said: "When I was growing up, smoking was glamorous. Film stars would pose for the cameras with a cigarette in their hand.
"I remember buying a single cigarette from the shop for threepence, then smoking it at a cafe, hoping the boys would notice.
"I moved on to a pack of five, then ten, and when I started working it was 20, and I would smoke a pack a day. I didn't realise it at the time but I was a pretty, young woman.
"It's only later, when you look in a mirror at what is left and see a photo as you used to be, that you realise how things have changed.
"I don't want anyone to suffer like I am. It is unimaginable and the pain is so horrendous I have to take morphine every day."
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Maureen publicised horrific photographs of what emphysema had reduced her to
Mrs Hamilton, a restaurant manager from Cambridge, lived a jet-set lifestyle as a young woman and was whisked to parties around the Mediterranean and Middle East.
One one occasion she was swept off her feet by a man who took her to his palace in Beirut.
At a party in Cairo, an Arab prince offered her £20,000 to spend the night with him.
She refused, saying: "I'm not that kind of girl."
The first warning shot over her health came in 1977, when she was 28.
She developed pneumonia on her way back from Israel and doctors advised her to go to a hospital that specialised in lung diseases.
She refused, saying she was scared.
Twenty years and countless cigarettes later, Mrs Hamilton collapsed and lost consciousness shortly after flying home from the Dominican Republic in 1997.
She was diagnosed with emphysema, an irreversible degenerative condition which makes breathing difficult as the lungs fill with fluid.
Doctors told her it had been developing for the best part of two decades.
She was to spend the rest of her life "shuffling from one room to another dragging an oxygen bottle with me".
Her last few years were a living hell in which she was kept alive on a ventilator while helpers spoon-fed her and cleared blockages from her airways with forceps.
She was moved to the Arthur Rank Hospice in Cambridge early last week.
Speaking earlier this year, she said: "I know giving up smoking is a struggle. But smokers don't see people in hospital hooked up to machines dying slow, painful, undignified deaths and they should.
"I hope my story can stop even one person smoking."
She arranged for posters of her to be used to highlight the damage smoking can cause and wanted children to visit her so that she could warn them of the dangers.
Amanda Sandford, of the anti-smoking group ASH, said yesterday: "I spoke to Maureen a couple of months ago. She was desperate to pass on her experience to try to prevent young people smoking.
"I hope her message lives on in some way. It would be a fitting tribute."
Mrs Hamilton's daughter Zoe, 41, said: "Mum was a tough cookie.
"She was a campaigner to the end and hoped her death would at least stop others from smoking."
Reader views (11)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
I quit smoking 55 days ago (14.11.08) and I have found the experience difficult but emancipating. For the past few days I have had many intense urges and feared giving in to the NICODEMON. However after seeing what happened to Maureen it has served as a great reminder of why I chose to quit in the first place.
I am sorry for the loss of your life and thank you Maureen.
- Sue, West Yorkshire
I am sorry but I feel the comments are so negative. This woman has had her life cut very short because she was addicted to a drug there was no help until recent years to get off cigarettes Illnesses such as emphysema and copd most people havnt heard of. I am a smoker and have been diagnosed with COPD I have tried with and without help to get off the cigarettes but am at my wits end thinking about what is going to happen to me in a few years but still I smoke. I have kept the addition of the c;loser magazine and the woman magazine with the story of maureen because when I first saw them I got such a fright to look at this poor woman I have read the article again this morning and am putting my comment in to this sight because I am going to stop smoking TODAY because of this article and I am going to give it the best shot I ever have and I would like to thank maureen and her daughters for being so brave and that their article has not been in vain and I am sure I am not the only one who has been affected by it.
- Alison, scotland
I loved my mum very much and I knew that this was coming, but it's still, to this day, over 6 months after it's happened, very shocking, and very sad.
I am working on posters that I would like to put up in doctors offices, etc...
- Emma, Maureen'S Daughter, Cambridge
I had the luck and joy of speaking to Maureen for some years as she purchased her replacement filters from our Company, I have to say even though she always seemed so in pain she always had an incredible outlook on everything and an unwavering zest for life, I will miss speaking to her a great deal and wish her family all the very best.
- Nicky, Morecambe
I was so shocked by your mum's story on ITV tonight, that I had to find out more. There is no doubt that the pain your mum suffered was beyond belief. My grandad too died of this 17 years ago - again his life was short lived. I run a service in Doncaster (Connexions) that is aimed at 13-19yrs olds, during the next smoking campaign week (not too sure when this is) I would like to acrivley promote your mum's story.
- Pam Castleford, Castleford, West Yorkshire
Amir, she did have a great life, but sadly it was too short and sadly for me I have lost my best friend. She suffered indescribable pain, which was not helped by the morphine she took. I guess she would have swapped that great life to not have suffered like she did. I sadly have to agree with Philip. Well done Bunny.
- Zoe, Maureen's Daughter, Cambs, UK
She must have gone through hell. I was diagnosed with COPD/emphysema 6 years ago and quite smoking 5-1/2 years ago when I got to live an oxygen tank 24/7. Thank God I had good doctors and wanted to stay as active as possible. I have been campaigning against smoking too. Whenever I can.
- Bunny Music, Sussex, NJ
Sounds like she had a great life and made it to her late fifties. What's there to complain about?
- Amir, London
This, and all such deaths, are very sad, because they are avoidable. Irrespective of such shocking images, people will continue to smoke because they have an entirely different view of risk to non-smokers.
- Philip, London, England
Ms Hamilton is no different to many unfortunate smokers in that she was frightened of knowing the truth and ignored the warning signs. The fact is many smokers don't heed the warning signs until it is far too late, eg when they are diagnosed with lung cancer. That's what the drug does to your brain, how it controls you and how addiction operates. All credit to Ms Hamilton for her brave attempt to educate others during her last years of life.
- Abi, London
Yes we all know we should give up, but perhaps if Ms Hamilton heeded the doctors in 1977 re her pneumonia scare then things may have turned out slightly different.
- Jay, London, UK
