‘Que grande es el cine’ has come to the end of its long run on Spanish TV. I looked forward to the programme every Monday despite rarely staying up to watch the films themselves. Moon River was the programme’s theme tune though maybe it should have been Smoke Gets in your Eyes. The show was presented by José Luis Garci, the film director with the perennial stubble, who would open up proceedings while enjoying a trademark cigarette. Garci would then introduce his guests, normally buffs in tweeds, who needed no further invitation to light cigarettes or pipes in preparation for a discussion on Fellini or some other European maestro. ‘Que grande es el cine’ was a throwback to the days when smoking looked both cool and intellectual.

Perhaps it is no mere coincidence that the show went off air at the same time as the new anti-tobacco law came into force. I wonder if Garci got the boot after refusing to stub out. If so, he has support from Spanish novelist, Javier Marias, who is using his Sunday column in El Pais to protest about the law, which he thinks is repressive and dictatorial.

However, owners of small cafes, bars and restaurants can choose whether or not to allow smoking on their premises. In that sense it seems that Spanish smokers still rule the roost. Small establishments do not generally consider a tobacco ban to be a wise business move.

What is more surprising is that some non-smokers I have spoken to find the new law a bit severe. In truth the law is moderate compared to the all-out public bans taking place in other European countries. Spanish law now bans smoking in the office but merely demands that cafes, bars and restaurants over 100m2 provide a separate area for non-smokers.

When I first came to live in Spain, I found it incredible, and comic in a way, that a bank or post office employee could serve a member of the public with a cigarette dangling from the side of their mouth. No doubt, there was a time not so long ago when such a sight was commonplace in the UK.

The big question is, will the notoriously anti-authoritarian Spanish public pay any heed? The other day, I had my first experience of smokers invading a no-smoking section en masse. After one enthusiast lit up, the café was suddenly transformed into a scene resembling the ‘Que grande es el cine’ studio. The main difference being no one was wearing tweeds and the talk was about the Barcelona match on TV rather than classic cinema. The waiter soon asked the culprits to put the ciggies out, which they duly did. Whether your average José Public non-smoker would have bothered to complain is another matter.

Despite closing in on retirement, Boots was ahead of his time. His lessons consisted mainly of quiet reading periods, broken only by smirks and chuckles, particularly when the short-sighted teacher raised his glasses onto his forehead. One of the boys would refer to this as "Boots doing a Barry Sheen".

Every now and then we would go to the school library to renew or take out more books. I recall reading Across the Barricades by Joan Lingard, a tale of teenage romance in sectarian Belfast. There was also A Pair of Jesus Boots by Sylvia Sherry. I remember some line, perhaps in the latter, about a minute spider crawling across the floor. I interpreted this to mean a spider that lived for one minute. One of the characters in the story was in court for theft and the appearance of this spider seemed to portray a wasted youth that would be over in a flash. I may have misread the word but at the same time, and quite by chance, I had discovered literary symbolism.

Reading without shackles, with nobody dictating what should be learned from a text, I had stumbled across a baby arachnid that would crawl towards poetry in adult life.

English with Boots didn’t seem to involve much work. And that’s how I still generally view literature, as leisure rather than labour, although the twain do meet. I even took a sabbatical from reading books at one point. It might have been a biography of Jim Morrison that kicked it off again; maybe the Killing Fields or Midnight Express. As I recall, it was To Kill a Mockingbird that convinced me there weren’t many better things to do with my spare time than read. After dropping out of the education system as early as possible I was never asked to write a single sentence to justify why I liked these books. Nor to analyse what they meant. I simply picked up another one. The reading habit gradually took hold and became an integral part of my world.

Somehow, and not overnight by any means, I fell into teaching. When I ask students what their favourite books are, the response is often something on the school syllabus. Perhaps I should congratulate schools on knowing what the kids want. But hold on, isn’t it that these are the only books some students ever bother with? Wouldn’t it be better if they were capable of selecting their own material? Or should we just forget about literacy levels once exams have been passed and the bell has gone for the last time?

I don't know if Boots was an education guru who sensed that a trip to the nearest library was a better option than a set text or whether he was just a lazy old git looking for an easy time before he picked up his pension.

Reading doesn’t have to mean ploughing through fancy novels in order to produce written analysis. I used to spend a lot of time as a child reading the series of comics and annuals printed by DC Thomson of Dundee: the Beano, Oor Wullie and the Broons. Then there were Commando books. These war comics seem like recruitment propaganda to me today but without them I might never have moved on to more sophisticated stuff.

Listen. Can you hear those heavy footsteps thundering down the corridor? Get your books out and start reading. Boots is back in town.

Frank Haffey had good reason to emigrate to Australia.He played in goal for Scotland in their 9-3 defeat at Wembley in 1961. Jimmy Greaves scored a hat-trick for England in that game while the late Johnny Haynes bagged a double. It is said that after the match Haffey was singing in the bath to raise his spirits.With Haynes off the scene, Haffey finally found the courage to return to Scotland this Christmas.

Sometimes when I’m lowdown
Sometimes when I’m no happy
I turn my back on this world
And think I’m Frank Haffey.

How can I look you in the face
When I’m synonymous with national disgrace?
Somehow I got out of here alive -
Signed for Sydney Budapest in 1965.

Jimmy Greaves is haunting my dreams
Still cry when I hear God Save the Queen
Think of the good times in between
Mind on that header by Gordon McQueen?

We could run off somewhere new
Needn’t be Argentina or Peru
Just far enough for Johnny Haynes
Not to come looking for me and you.

Steve Porter ©2006