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Quit smoking advice from 'Fagash Lil'
PROUD great grandmother Catherine Deighton is living proof that anyone can quit cigarettes.
After all, she packed in her 60-a-day habit at the grand age of 76.
Now, in the week when she celebrated her third anniversary of being smoke free, the Hartlepool 79-year-old says she's never felt better.
Catherine, a former cleaner at Woolworths, the Melbourne Hotel and betting shops in Hartlepool, admits she first smoked when she was 13 – and never stopped for another six decades.
"People used to call me Fagash Lil," said Catherine, from the Hart Lane area of town. "I always used to have a cigarette in my hand.
"I used to get up in the middle of the night to have a cigarette. The house used to be yellow."
She admits the habit grew worse and she began chain smoking when her husband, Dennis, died aged 72 from asbestosis in 2001.
But her smoking ended forever in 2007. Some of her own family decided to pack in and Catherine said: "They told me I didn't have to pack it at my age but I felt like an outcast."
Then she and some friends were having a cuppa in a cafe and agreed they would all go along to a quit session.
It was Catherine whose resolve proved the greatest and she packed in her 60-a-day habit with the support of a help service run by the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.
The Hartlepool mum-of-four, grandmother of 12 and great grandmother of 12 says she's never felt better.
She has saved 50 a week ever since and adds: "I can't believe it when I see the money. I have bought all sorts since I stopped smoking.
"I have bought a three-piece suite, an oven, a bed, a tumble dryer, all sorts."
Her health has improved too, she says. "I feel better for doing it," says Catherine.
"Whenever I meet people who smoke I think 'that stinks and I used to smell like that'."
Catherine has her own way of keeping her mind occupied – and off the cigarettes.
She said: "I do loads of those word searches. I buy the books.
"It keeps my cigarette hand busy as well.
"If I can pack in anyone can."
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Weather for Hartlepool
Monday 13 February 2012
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Wind Speed: 21 mph
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