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What on earth was Bogie Roll as advertised on the board behind the men? The mind boggles!

Bogie Roll was a pipe tobacco, also known as Black Twist, tried a chew of it once as it was supposed to cure toothache and spat it out in disgust.

Bogie Roll was pipe tobacco, which came in a stick and had to be pared down. I think!!!!

Does black twist sound better then?

When I started work we sold Black Twist. It came in a spiral, kind of like a coil spring. We cut it with pliers and weighed it for sale. Latterly we only had one customer for it. Wonder what happened to the rest! It was like solid tar with bits in it! As Fred says, you pared it off with a knife to smoke or chew it. Never tried it myself. Could never pluck up the courage!

Bogie roll or black twist was supplied in rolls weighing 1lb. The seller cut it into 1 ounce bits for the customer. Some shops had marks notched on the counter and sold by length. Latterly it was prepacked into 1 ounce packets. A common one was XXX Bogie Roll.

I first chewed twist age 14 when I left school and became a coal miner, just to feel the part of a real miner in what was a new alien world to me. It was a short-lived experience after discovering the awful taste and the compulsion to keep spitting. For the miners it was the substitute for cigarettes as smoking was banned of course. Twist chewers were readily identified by their brown stained lips, (and shirt fronts.) One could attain some pretty impressive distance spitting, a practice that was quite competitive, often displayed by cowboys on the silver screen.
You were lucky never to have plucked up the courage to have a chew Rob.