[A humble request: If you can, please donate to help me carry on tracing word histories. Thank you.]
The British-English phrase back of a (or the) cigarette packet, also back of a (or the) fag packet, is used figuratively to indicate that something (such as a calculation, a plan, etc.) has been formulated or devised hurriedly, roughly or carelessly (as though sketched or scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet), and is lacking in detail or not fully formed.
—Synonyms: back of a napkin and back of an envelope.
The phrase back of a cigarette packet occurs, for example, in the following from Schools proposals slammed, published in the Burton Mail (Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England) of Thursday 21st January 1993 [page 15, column 2]:
Primary school headteachers in Burton have given the Government a caning over proposals to revolutionise teaching methods.
And a union chief says he has little confidence in Government’s “back-of-a-cigarette-packet” methods of deciding education policy.
[…]
[…] Burton’s president of the National Association of Headteachers, Mr Graham Marshment, claims that teachers have not been consulted and the proposals not properly discussed.
“This Government is putting ideas on the back of a cigarette packet one day and making it into policy the next,” said Mr Marshment, headteacher of Winshill’s Holy Rosary RC Primary School.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences that I have found of back of a (or the) cigarette packet, also back of a (or the) fag packet:
—Two remarks: 1) This phrase was often used by farmers. 2) It is not always clear whether it was used figuratively or literally:
1-: From the column Farming, by David Waterson, published in the Saffron Walden Weekly News (Saffron Walden, Essex, England) of Friday 13th October 1967 [page 14, column 3]:
OFFICE work is not the strong point of most farmers. But the days when it could be done on the back of a cigarette packet have long since vanished and farmers are now resigned to wading through oceans of paperwork in the daily running of their enterprises.
2-: From Walden ‘better off’ based on Cambridge, published in the Cambridge Evening News (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England) of Monday 22nd February 1971 [page 9, column 1]:
Saffron Walden would be a small, largely forgotten outpost of Essex if the Government’s White Paper on the reorganisation of local government was adopted, the vice-chairman of the Saffron Walden Constituency Labour Party, Mr. Paul Tinnion, claimed at the weekend.
Mr. Tinnion was speaking to members of the Saffron Walden Young Socialists. He said the Government had not taken enough care over the drawing up of the White Paper. “The boundaries have the look of having been drawn in ten minutes on the back of a cigarette packet,” he said.
3-: From an account of a meeting of Buckinghamshire County Council, which discussed the county’s reorganisation, published in the Bucks Examiner (Chesham, Buckinghamshire, England) of Friday 29th October 1971 [page 13, column 2]:
County Cllr. Edward Lyme said he thought adjustments would be made to the boundary between Gerrards Cross and Chalfont St. Peter as a matter of course because the present one went through people’s houses and gardens.
“Whoever drew the line must have been bereft of sense or working from a map on the back of a cigarette packet,” he said.
4-: From an account of a meeting held at Denham, near Bury, at which Farm Protection Ltd. demonstrated to farmers two new post-harvest drenching machines, published in the Bury Free Press (Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England) of Friday 4th August 1972 [page 8, column 5]:
The smaller of the two machines on show was the Hudson Drenching Machine Mark III. Priced at £500, it was developed by Wisbech engineer John Wilson.
He started working on it two years ago after a grower had come to him with the initial design, as Mr. Wilson put it, “on the back of a cigarette packet”.
5-: From They don’t build them like that anymore, by Peter Wright, about the new building complexes in Manchester, published in the Manchester Evening News (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of Tuesday 20th February 1973 [page 12, column 2]—the following is about Manchester’s Central Library:
In a derogatory nutshell, and to quote an old chap who obviously knew what he didn’t like, “It looks like summat they designed on the back of a fag packet. Neither one thing nor the other,” he grumbled.
6-: From Anger over ‘sketchy’ plans, published in the Middlesex Chronicle (London, England) of Friday 7th June 1974 [page 1, column 3]:
THERE was severe criticism for would-be developers who present inadequate, “sketchy” drawings with their outline planning applications, by Spelthorne planning committee last week.
One councillor complained of “pitiful plans, almost on the back of cigarette packets.”
7-: From Harvester gets the farmers talking, published in the Lincolnshire Free Press (Spalding, Lincolnshire, England) of Tuesday 9th July 1974 [page 6, column 6]:
Every payment from British Sugar now has a long explanatory letter accompanying it. I am certain that no growers understand how the calculations are made and if they think they do, they find it impossible to reconcile the figures with what they actually loaded.
We now wait until the end, add up the income, divide it by tons and acres and make management decisions by the back of the cigarette packet method only a year later than we used to do before management became a science rather than an art.
8-: From Changes have cut working time in half, about Derek Wallworth’s Goyt Hall Farm, by Peter Erlam, published in the Alderley & Wilmslow and Knutsford Advertiser (Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England) of Thursday 6th March 1975 [Monthly Magazine: page 16, column 4]:
Spelling out the basic changes that have taken place, he said: “The days of costing things on the back of cigarette packets are over. Farming is one of the highest capital investment businesses in the country and the boss has got to sit down every night, with his specs on the end of his nose, and work out every last penny.”
9-: From Movement back towards real mixed farming, by Gordon Currie, published in the Ripon Gazette & Observer (Ripon, Yorkshire, England) of Friday 14th October 1977 [page 30, column 3]:
A chance remark the other day bore much truth and wisdom about present day farming standards: “You cannot plan it all out on the back of a cigarette packet like you used to do . . . !”
10-: From Passing the time, by the British author and columnist Keith Waterhouse (1929-2009), published in the Daily Mirror (London, England) of Monday 12th March 1979 [page 10, column 4]:
What is the average time? […]
[…]
One [school of thought] was that the average time was six o’clock, by virtue of this being the halfway mark in the travels of the big hand and little hand round the clock face. (This theory does not work with digital watches.) Another school of thought worked out on the back of a cigarette packet that the average time was twenty past three, but failed to justify this proposition.
11-: From Land will be used for council houses, published in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph (Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England) of Tuesday 19th June 1979 [page 7, columns 3 & 6]:
The controlling Labour group of Grimsby Borough Council announced last night that it plans to use the land in Duchess Street and Garden Street for the building of 65 houses.
But it was accused of “fag packet calculations” by Tory members of the council’s Policy Committee. […]
[…]
The announcement was attacked by Coun. Tony Rouse (Con) who said: “It seems as though you are planning to spend another half a million pounds on calculations which sound as though they were done on the back of a fag packet.”
But Coun. Bovill said the figures had been arrived at after detailed discussions between the officials and the Labour group. […]
[…]
Coun. Rouse retorted: “[…] I am sorry to say, I still can’t help thinking it seems like the fag-packet approach.”
12-: From a letter to the Editor, by one Alan Debenham, published in Evening Post (Bristol, England) of Friday 29th February 1980 [page 32, column 6]:
The machinery nowadays for industrial wage-bargaining is very complex and very costly on both sides, very often being conducted at national level only. How ridiculous it is, in this context, for free-riders to be able to opt out and demand their own negotiating procedures—I suppose on the back of a fag packet in the boss’s office!
13-: From the Weekly Argus (Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales) of Thursday 18th December 1980 [page 7, column 6]:
‘Fag packet’ town plan
Abergavenny’s interim town plan has been dismissed by traders as a waste of time.
Mr. Bill Evans, president of Abergavenny Chamber of Trade, told a chamber meeting: “A lot of what the plan says is sensible, but it can be summed up on the back of a fag packet.”
Members objected to the amount of time and money spent by Monmouth district council on producing the plan, which has just been on public exhibition.
word histories 