To my mates and me, the acrid fumes from the automotive paint and subsequent baking booths merely provided enough cover for our most daring stunt yet – smoking cigarettes right under the nose of one of our most reviled and authoritarian teachers.

With those hydrocarbons swirling about, who knows how dangerous this really was?

This was the 1970s and, not for the first time, we were being led around the sprawling Chrysler-Mitsubishi factory by our technical studies teacher and a company guide.

As they shouted over a cacophony of noise and the occasional shower of sparks, explaining the various stages in the automotive production line, we took advantage, whenever they weren't looking, to lug on the illicit fags held cupped and lit in our lumber-jacket pockets.