When Radio Met Neon in Parliament Looking back, it feels surreal: best designs for neon lighting while Europe braced for Hitler’s advance, the House of Commons was debating glowing shopfronts. Mr. Gallacher, an MP with a sharp tongue, rose to challenge the government. Were neon installations scrambling the airwaves? The answer was astonishing for the time: roughly one thousand cases logged in a single year. Picture it: the soundtrack of Britain in 1938, interrupted not by enemy bombers but by shopfront glow.

Postmaster-General Major Tryon admitted the scale of the headache. 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". Which meant: more static for listeners. Gallacher shot back. People were paying licence fees, he argued, and they deserved a clear signal. From the backbenches came another jab.

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. Fast forward to today and it’s the opposite story: the once-feared glow is now the heritage art form begging for protection. --- What does it tell us? Neon has always been political, cultural, disruptive.

It’s always pitted artisans against technology. In truth, it’s been art all along. --- Our take at Smithers. When we look at that 1939 Hansard record, we don’t just see dusty MPs moaning about static. So, yes, old is gold. And it always will. --- Don’t settle for plastic impostors. 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. Smithers has it. ---