Well I'm still here and I have spent 30 odd years working with the stuff including crawling around in VC 10 wing tanks with inches of fuel trapped in them and that was in the days before health and safety intervened. I see the teachers are now suing, at some point someone needs to give these people a reality check, lives were at risk.
As for smoking, heck you would often smell like a bowser, but at the time one smoked and the chances of catching fire was nigh on impossible, we even tried lighting a rag soaked in the stuff.