When Neon Signs Crashed The Wireless
1939’s Strange Neon vs Wireless Battle
Looking back, it feels surreal: in June 1939, just months before Britain plunged into war, Parliament was wrestling with the problem of neon interfering with radios.
the outspoken Mr. Gallacher, stood up and asked the Postmaster-General a peculiar but pressing question. How many complaints had rolled in about wireless sets being ruined by neon signage?
The answer was astonishing for the time: the Department had received nearly one thousand reports from frustrated licence-payers.
Imagine it: ordinary families huddled around a crackling set, desperate for dance music or speeches from the King, only to hear static and buzzing from the local cinema’s neon sign.
Postmaster-General Major Tryon admitted the scale of the headache. The snag was this: shopkeepers could volunteer to add suppression devices, but they couldn’t be forced.
He said legislation was being explored, but stressed that the problem was "complex".
Which meant: more static for listeners.
Gallacher shot back. He pushed for urgency: speed it up, Minister, people want results.
Mr. Poole piled in too. If neon was a culprit, weren’t cables buzzing across the land just as guilty?
Tryon deflected, saying yes, cables were part of the mess, which only complicated things further.
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Looking back now, this debate is almost poetic. Back then, London Neon Signs was the tech menace keeping people up at night.
Fast forward to today and it’s the opposite story: the menace of 1939 is now the endangered beauty of 2025.
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What does it tell us?
Neon has always been political, cultural, disruptive. It’s always forced society to decide what kind of light it wants.
Second: every era misjudges neon.
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The Smithers View. We see the glow that wouldn’t be ignored.
That old debate shows neon has always mattered. And that’s why we keep bending glass and filling it with gas today.
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Ignore the buzzwords of "LED neon". Real neon has been debated in Parliament for nearly a century.
If neon got MPs shouting in 1939, it deserves a place in your space today.
Choose craft.
Smithers has it.
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