When David Hockney read Austin Mitchell's whinge in The Oldie about how MPs are being unfairly treated as lepers, he scribbled back an ironic blast in response on the Government's “new instructions” to smokers and the stubborn temptations of a cigarette.

Here is an extract from his letter to the Grimsby MP.

Dear Austin

Dear Austin, I read your piece in the Oldie and I was a bit sympathetic. Of course, I know a lot was exaggerated, and of course it's all nothing compared to the boys of Brussels (and the girls). I think most people thought that as well and had a little snicker about it.

The thing is Austin, that people can be very ungrateful about some things and after all they don't always know about your work to clean up things, clear the air so to speak.

I know you voted to get rid of all the smokers from pubs, and you mentioned to me your wife's insights into this as well. Of course it's an improvement. I don't know for sure how it's working as I don't go out too much now as I am too deaf to be social in crowded rooms, but I keep myself informed. All this doesn't affect me much as I stay at home, but of course I do fall by the wayside at times and have a cigarette. Mind you I fell by the wayside with the carbon accumulation.

I had given up charcoal drawing as it was so obvious the carbon footprint went straight from my easel to the bedroom - I could have been caught out quick. But the other day I failed there. It just came over me that it might be a good idea to draw the trees with a bit of burned old tree, well it's really a twig. Anyway I did a few but I put the stuff firmly back in the box, although you can't lock cardboard that well.

I keep thinking what it was like before your good work. Think of it, people sitting at the front in a nightclub with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and was it Sammy Davis Jr? All believe it or not, smoking while they were actually singing (this alone must have notched down the quality which we now know thanks to all the research.)

They even had the cheek to sing about smoke getting in the eyes. What must it have been like? Thanks goodness we won't have that again, and now your friend little Emily with asthma can safely sit on the front row. It must have been torture for some and not knowing 30 years later that that cough had its source in a song many years before.

It will be better now fresher air and even the whiff of disinfectant, assures one that even health is being considered all the time now. Whether Mrs Mitchell will receive the credit for all this is doubtful. I wonder how many people who sat on those front rows are alive today. I shouldn't expect many have survived.

Fridaythorpe is a lot cleaner now. The pubs have gone - have you ever heard of the Fridaythorpe binge drinkers, of course not, you won't and the little church is safe with a new sign inside.

I suppose one of the big achievements of your leader and one his father would be proud of is that he's the man who finally got rid of all the smokers in Westminster Abbey. I'd have completely overlooked that corner, but of course I'm not as vigilant as some. As I say I'm not an expert on out there now, as we find it a lot more interesting to stay home. One more of my difficulties was that I didn't always hear about the new instructions and there got to be quite a lot, so I could cope with them better at home. The trouble is I can easily fall off the wagon here.

I used to keep a lot of cigarettes in the house in LA, in case of earthquakes, you know Austin, be prepared, if you were ever in the boy scouts, and I thought well, water and cigarettes would keep me going for a while (yes, Austin, we can be very misguided if good guidance isn't coming from higher up.)

I was in York the other evening, you know one of those drizzly evenings and I chatted with an old lady trying to keep her cigarette dry. In her youth they didn't hear your message about smokers dying younger, so its slipped her by, but of course I could see the hidden menace lurking in her superficial charm, killer, was a word that wouldn't have occurred to me in the past, before the recent new instructions, but enlightenment comes to us in odd ways.

There was a funny thing, I went to see Wayne Sleep in his hotel room. There was a very informative sign that if you smoked a cigarette in the room, you would be charged £150 for I suppose a total makeover of it. Anyway, the funny bit was that I'd just read in Bridlington Free Press that someone was fined £60 for smoking cannabis (this may have been outside I assumed it could be doubled for inside).

I don't know whether you'd have thought of that, but perhaps Mrs Mitchell might work on it.

I know you've missed out on the candles with their solid carbon flame filling the room but soon people will see that a little candlelit dinner is a danger at the moment overlooked but I'm confident you will be working on it.

I sometimes think of those old Labour leaders of the bad old days. Killer Atlee, I remember him, torn from us at 85, but you think of it Austin - 1945 - there could not have been a group of innocent school children walking Whitehall, passing Atlee's open window - that pipe smoke falling on them - he just didn't care that Clement. Again an unknown member of victims I suppose you never mention Atlee now, and of course that monster Churchill. How could he see anything through all that smoke, and him being an older person as well?

It was Adolf who was a pioneer for a smoke-free Europe, one of your trailblazers you might say. It's unfortunate his other plans made a lot of smoke, but sometimes you have to focus on something else, so his good work there was delayed!

Even the old films can be deceptive, making it look as though people were having a good time in those pubs. Think of the cost to the NHS of all those knee operations after a knees-up and you have saved the nation some money, even for the price of a song.

I know you're working on getting the cigarettes under the counter. Of course a lot of people for a long time have preferred to get them there as they are generally cheaper and with your new scheme might get cheaper still. I assume you've thought it all out and can see ahead the broad sunlit uplands of radiant health for everyone. I suppose they'll all be pulling down the hospitals soon, what with the big savings and what won't be needed.

As I've said, even though at times I fall by the wayside, I'm managing okay Austin. I take walks on the promenade here right down to Belvedere Cafe, where they have got rid of the smokers, even outside you'll be pleased to hear. In one of my sillier moments in the past I was sitting there having fallen by the wayside and I joked (if one can joke about such a subject) that being a smoker in Brid was like being a non-smoker in London. I don't think anybody laughed now I think of it and then I realised the Brid people didn't know about the tasty air on Kensington High Street.

Anyway, don't worry about the expenses; people get a bit worked up and over-excited about things. Someone even mentioned that those women MPs should be in Holloway and pay their own bus fare there, so some of it is only temporary, Austin, until people can see a bit clearer.
You're an inspiration to me to stay at home and work. I only hope you can get your message across to the people. There's no place like home nowadays, which as you know they don't always know. I have made a few plans myself, even getting a bit bigger with the pictures. I sometimes pondered your plans with the smokers.

The trouble for me is that the moment I ponder, the weed comes up and sometimes I think even that it could help. You can still get carried away by that kind of thing, the drifting smoke wandering in all directions, the lovely shapes interlocked; you sometimes don't see the reality, which I know can be too harsh. What was it? The cause of death is birth - who wants to look into that?

No, I just wondered what you plans were. These people don't listen; you've said it over and over again and some people won't listen. They have given up reading, an easy habit to slip into with cigarette packets, etc; it's a bit harder with the books. What do you do with people like that, nowadays especially? They say there's 10 million, and with their friends that's a few more, but of course this is small compared with the trillions they have started talking about now.

Perhaps you just leave them outside; they won't fit in, for the moving on anyway. That of course is partly the trouble. "We have moved on" is a phrase that some of them have missed. Sometimes it's heard quite a lot, but even then some people can mistake it for "falling off". I can see why they get the movement idea, but forget the direction, for falling off is also moving on. One can get a bit confused by this.

Sometimes I think the people doing the instructions now might be a bit misguided. I know I can be, so it could happen in others. If their workload is too much, couldn't some local people help? It could take a lot off your shoulders and you could even have a rest, especially the eyes.

I'm sorry about your leader only having one eye, but of course we should never forget the inner eye - you know the bliss of solitude. They say sometimes I've pondered that could the eye be a sign; have we not seen it correctly? Does it mean there's a lot of blind people about? Remember the one-eyed man can be king in some situations.

Could it possibly be interpreted that way, but after a cigarette my mind can wander off. I even think sometimes that I might have an attraction to the wayside. Sometimes it doesn't look too bad and one can get weary on the straight and narrow. Then I wake up day-dreaming again, it should be done only at night I know, but some of us are frail.

I can see it's better to move on to the pills; there's one for every kind of thing nowadays. I'm expecting soon one for Friday nights, you know just a bit too tired after the week's toil and will you be able to enjoy it enough? I know employment can be dodgy - overdo this, overdo that and you've had it. That's it sometimes.

Nevertheless, it's good at times to have some in moderation. I think I can still say that Austin, and probably even you can bring yourself to that.
Keep up the good work Austin (Grimsby needs all it can get). You're getting older by the hour friend.

P.S. You know, Austin, I was thinking your good work when I was out yesterday. In some of the byways round here you often get the travellers; they have been coming these past 100 years; I even got to know some as some of younger boys would come and comment on my drawings - very lively lads they are.

I was driving back and I thought the roadside, the wayside, what about the wayside people? Couldn't you help? I know you've always been keen to help some groups that have been cast aside - well this recent group, "The Waysiders" you might call them, could be helped. What about a central meeting place in some areas? They could get together and might swap stories, that kind of thing, just a roof over the head, never mind the walls. Isn't that all people need? I know they couldn't have drinks, but surely a glass of water and if you could allow a bit of bread for nibbles. Would that be asking too much Austin, or does it sound too luxurious nowadays? Perhaps your pal Harriet Harman might be interested.

Outsiders, waysiders, upside-downers, she's keen and would probably jump at the chance to help there. I'm only thinking of you, keeping up the good work, the thought for the day, the kind of thing that is important to look as though one is helping nowadays.

Mind you, thinking about it I can even see the humour of it. The outsiders and the waysiders could gather in the Wayside Inn and we might think, "Oh my God, here we go again", but sometimes these recurring thoughts just arrive. What can you do Austin?

We have to try and think of others, you know the decent things and all that, and this was just a suggestion that you might be keen on with your good work. I know they have slipped back (or is it falling off) in Germany, as I often go to Baden Baden for cigarettes and the baths. They actually complained so they still smoke in the bars, but of course they have to deal with that Schmid couple. Helmet Schmid, can you believe it? After all these years they are still there, sometimes away; 92 they both are, spoiling it for the young doctor who's trying to find a way of telling them how better off they would have been not smoking.

As you know, there's always someone, even couples, who spoil things for others, and they do have the other difficulty about Adolf being a trailblazer in this. It's a good job we don't have a couple like that here, sticking their necks out and smoking everywhere. What would you do with those old codgers?

Anyway, these are just my thoughts to help keep up the good work which I know you are keen to do. It can be a mad world at times Austin, our perceptions can utterly deceive us, but you know as a photographer that one slight movement of the camera and you have a completely different picture, another point of view. Yet another you might think.

How do we cope with all these? Perhaps better to have one viewpoint and get everyone to fall in, I mean move on. Well you know what I mean Austin!
I can hardly bring myself to say keep up the good work again when I know you're searching for it, so I'll just say farewell for the moment.

David H.

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