Stuart Whelan

  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…