House Of Commons 1939: Neon Interference On Trial
The Day Westminster Debated Static and Glow
On paper it reads like satire: in June 1939, just months before Britain plunged into war, MPs in Westminster were arguing about neon signs.
Labour firebrand 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 reply turned heads: roughly one thousand cases logged in a single year.
Picture it: listeners straining to catch news bulletins, drowned out by the hum of glowing adverts on the high street.
Postmaster-General Major Tryon admitted the scale of the headache. The difficulty?: shopkeepers could volunteer to add suppression devices, but they couldn’t be forced.
He spoke of a possible new Wireless Telegraphy Bill, but admitted consultations would take "some time".
Which meant: more static for listeners.
Gallacher shot back. He said listeners were getting a raw deal.
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, 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. In 1939 neon was the villain of the airwaves.
Jump ahead eight decades and the roles have flipped: the menace of 1939 is now the endangered beauty of 2025.
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What does it tell us?
First: London neon Co. has always rattled cages. It’s always forced society to decide what kind of light it wants.
Now it’s dismissed as retro fluff.
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The Smithers View. 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 that’s why we keep bending glass and filling it with gas today.
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Forget the fake LED strips. Real neon has been debated in Parliament for nearly a century.
If neon could shake Westminster before the war, it can certainly shake your walls now.
Choose craft.
We make it.
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