When Neon Crashed the Airwaves On paper it reads like satire: in the shadow of looming global conflict, Parliament was wrestling with the problem of neon interfering with radios. Mr. Gallacher, an MP with a sharp tongue, stood up and asked the Postmaster-General a peculiar but pressing question. Was Britain’s brand-new glow tech ruining the nation’s favourite pastime – radio? The reply turned heads: around a thousand complaints in 1938 alone. Picture it: the soundtrack of Britain in 1938, interrupted not by enemy bombers but by shopfront glow.

Major Tryon confessed the problem was real. The difficulty?: the government had no legal power to force neon owners to fix it. He spoke of a possible new Wireless Telegraphy Bill, but stressed that the problem was "complex". In plain English: no fix any time soon. Gallacher pressed harder. People were paying licence fees, he argued, and they deserved a clear signal. Another MP raised the stakes. If neon was a culprit, weren’t cables buzzing across the land just as guilty?

The Postmaster-General ducked the blow, admitting it made the matter "difficult" but offering no real solution. --- From today’s vantage, it feels rich with irony. Neon was once painted as the noisy disruptor. Eighty years on, the irony bites: the once-feared glow is now the heritage art form begging for protection. --- What does it tell us? Neon has never been neutral. From crashing radios to clashing with LED, it’s always been about authenticity vs convenience.

In 1939 it was seen as dangerous noise. --- Our take at Smithers. When we look at that 1939 Hansard record, we don’t just see dusty MPs moaning about static. That old debate shows neon has always mattered. And it still does. --- Ignore the buzzwords of "LED neon". Glass and gas are the original and the best. If neon could jam the nation’s radios in 1939, it can sure as hell light your lounge, office, or storefront in 2025. Choose craft.

We make it. ---