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Stuart Whelan CPG is a long-time Pete Geek and one of the handful of pipe smokers who has connected with my philosophical novel The X Pipe. Back in 2020, I contacted him for help establishing the exisstence of a Kapp & Peterson factory in Australia, where its retail outlet was, and when both were operating. He sent me some great information, which I’ll share next time. But this morning, I want to introduce him formally to those who may not know him through the International Pipe Smoker Lounge on Facebook.  He’s one of the founders and moderators of this group, which includes members from all over the globe, include several right here in Texas that I met at the Texas Pipe Show last year.

MARK: What is—or was—your line of work?

STUART: I previously worked and lived in Sydney working as an executive for financial services organisations, but took early retirement and with my wife we ran a Bed and Breakfast, and I became publisher and editor of a quarterly lifestyle magazine. We closed the B&B in 2017 and the magazine 2023, so now I am fully retired. Besides pipe smoking, my other hobbies include pistol shooting and 3D Printing.

MARK:  I know pipe smoking in Australia was once a common practice, and indeed, it seems like until around 2010 or so I would run across internet tobacconists and even dealers selling Peterson pipes. How did you get started smoking a pipe?

STUART: I have fond memories as a child of my father smoking a pipe. In later years, he smoked a Falcon and his favourite tobacco was MacBaren Plumcake, although given the number of Price Albert tins in the garage holding miscellaneous rusted nuts and bolts, this was obviously another of his favourites.

Fast forward to my late teens. I tried cigarettes and did not like them, and I wanted to try a pipe, but felt I was too young looking to pull it off. A few years later and I’m in the workforce and reading Sherlock Holmes and I bought my first pipe, a Stanwell and some Borkun Riff Cherry tobacco.  I have some great memories smoking my Stanwell with my father.

Over the next few years, I enjoyed my pipes, and as this was the 80’s I even was able to smoke in the office. Around this time a childhood friend gifted me a Barling pipe. Not long after this, with the birth of my second child, I decided to give up smoking.  I carried that Barling pipe around in my many moves and life experiences, and by the winter of 2018 I decided it was time to bring it back into action.

MARK: What was that like?

STUART:  Going to a local “tobacco shop” [note quotation marks] for the first time in decades, I was struck by the clinical appearance. There were no pipes on display, no advertising of exotic scenes with ‘jet-setting types’, no cowboys on horseback silhouetted against a sunset. The shop looked like a drug store dispensary more than a purveyor of fine tobacco. I asked if they had any pipe tobacco and was offered a choice of four 30g pouches, one of which was Borkun Riff Cherry.

My purchase was retrieved from the cabinet, and instead of the familiar graphics of sail boats and sunsets what I saw looked like it could have come out an Army ration pack. A dark khaki pouch with a graphic that would make a medical student faint. Undeterred, I ask how much and was told $65! [That’s $45 in US currency—for 30 grams.]

MARK:  What attracted you to Peterson as a brand?

STUART: After enjoying my pipe for a while, I decided to look for a different shape.  Enter petersonpipes.com.au (now closed) a local wholesaler’s retail site that, because there were no tobacco sales, could show images of pipes for sale. I placed an order for a 305 System Premier and followed up with a 303 System Premier.

After my purchases, I started investigating Peterson Pipes online and found the official site and was delighted to learn the Factory Manager (Tony Whelan) shared my late father’s name, the connection was instant and made all the more interesting with Peterson’s long and storied history.

About the same time I found PPN and acquired a first edition of “The Peterson Pipe” book from ‘Smokingpipes’.

I like bent pipes over straight and system over non-system, my favourite ‘go to’ pipes are the PPN POY 309 System Spigot, the POY 2021 “4AB” and a Deluxe 9B with NAP system stem from Sliver Gray. For non-system pipes I have the POY 2019 “999” in both rusticated and sandblasted.

I have done some estate pipe restoration, although it is now fairly slim picking, however my best find and my oldest pipe is a pre-republic era Peterson Shamrock 995 Canadian from the 1920-30’s. Other restorations of note was a Shape 31 System pipe, and a 314 System with box I am guessing from the 1980’s.

MARK: I’ve found many Peterson fans have cultural and even philosophical connections to the brand. Has that been true with you?

STUART: The other aspect which I have come to appreciate is the Thinking man logo of K&P which I have found to be particularly prophetic when it comes to today’s pipe smoker. Unlike the past where there was a strong cultural endorsement or even an element of being a “rite of passage’ becoming a pipe smoker, today it is very much a shunned practice being lumped together with the smoking of cigarettes. So those that take it up the pipe tend to have a more non-conventional mindset.

This is something that I can certainly see in my own life as I have always had an open mind and have studied areas and topics not considered mainstream.  For example I have always been of a religious persuasion and during my studies in these areas, I came across the “creationist” arguments for a biblical interpretation of the world and its beginnings. After the study quite a few texts on this subject, I saw that it took more faith to believe in an evolutionary world view than for a biblical view so I changed my mind to hold a creationist point of view. Over the years I continue to follow the scientific discoveries in case new evidence emerges that may make me review.

Another example is, by convention we are told to always wear clothes, following a visit to a legal clothing optional beach I discovered the freedom of going clothes free, my wife also enjoyed the experience and later we extended this to holidaying in a non-sexual clothes-free resorts. Little did I realise that this discovery would mean a complete change in our life-style. At 55 I was able to take early retirement and we purchased a home that was a Naturist Bed and Breakfast, and later bought an established Naturist magazine business and became its publisher and editor. We closed the B&B in 2017 and ran the magazine until 2023 after 25 years of publication and being Australia’s last remaining Naturist publication, we finally closed because people were getting their information on the lifestyle from social media rather than magazines.

All this has resulted in me not wearing clothes for the last 12 years except when we interact with the world. Thus we say, “Naked by choice – clothed by necessity”. It is amazing the types of people we have met form all over the world, in all different occupations, people who all follow the same creed, ‘respect for self, respect for others and respect for the environment’.

MARK: This isn’t something most people in the US know or understand. I just asked Mr. AI, who reports that there are only 7 nude beaches in the US. It’s not something I think most Americans can even comprehend.

STUART: To bring this detour back to pipe smoking in a humorous way, I can attest the importance of the use of a ‘wind cap’ when smoking on windy days, as wayward embers are to be avoided when you are a ‘bare piper’!

MARK: What else can you tell about the culture of pipe smoking where you live?

STUART: I live in a small town on the east coast about 3hr drive north from Sydney. I have never met any other pipe smoker nor seen a fellow pipe smoker. I do occasionally smoke in public but have never been approached.

I am sorry to say that pipe smoking is now, in Australia, a luxury item with a tin (50g) of tobacco costing AUD $180 (USD $125). Our government has so much excise on tobacco that it has spawned an organised crime black market for cigarettes; you would think that the prohibition era in the US would have taught them something but no. My US $1500 tobacco cellar is made up of 12 tins!

The latest restrictions, brought in late last year, is that I can no longer buy a tin of tobacco: all tobacco has to be in a 30g pouch and aromatic tobaccos are banned. Fortunately, there are a few local online tobacconists who have a reasonable range of pipe tobaccos and these are our lifeline to getting quality tobacco and we try to support them as best we can.

A good friend and his wife travel a couple of times a year to Hawaii and he is now on a first name basis with the proprietor of a tobacco shop so he brings in a tin when he travels. We also have strict import regulations of 25g per person.

There are some Facebook groups and I know of a couple of collectors and pipe makers in Australia but they are spread throughout the country. Having said that I have found my smoking group via the International Pipe Smoking Lounge on Facebook and our weekly Zoom call meetings. The majority are in the US  but regular members are from Germany, Canada, Ireland, England, India, Japan, etc meeting time is mid-afternoon Saturday Central time US and for me it is early morning Sunday. In India it is VERY early morning Sunday: such is the comrade and friendships that have been made. We are also regularly joined by well-known pipe carvers not to sell their wares, but just for a smoke and a chat.

CODA

A few months after the launch of The X Pipe at the Chicago show in 2024, I was feeling pretty low about that book. While the reception of my presentation at the show went really well, not a single person I’d placed it with on the trade side had ever responded–even those I thought I was on such good terms as to be considered good friends. Going to the mail box one day in November, I found a letter from Australia. A real letter. The kind with a real stamp, from a human being. It was from Stuart:

Every time I pick up that book, I think of Stuart. His letter reminded me of a saying attributed to Stephen Covey: “Be effective with people, efficient with work.”  Stuart has always been one of those effective kinds of people, being the change he wants to see in the world.

*I’ve come to see that I have an “anti-bucket list.” My anti-bucket, as you might imagine, has holes in it symbolizing all the places I want to go but probably never will. The Peterson “holes” include all the documents and artifacts at Kapp & Peterson that have yet to be explored or inventoried, Paul Kruger’s museum, house and papers in South Africa where his Patent House Pipe with the Transvaal coat of arms is located, and doing some boots on the ground research in Australia’s librarie for a fuller picture of the K&P involvement there.