Numbers of specialist makers are dwindling but one charity plans to save this vital part of our cultural heritage
Nick Malyon was seduced by neon lighting at the end of the 1980s while travelling in America. He left home after failing his A-levels and doing a disastrous four-year stint as a vintage car salesman in London.
“I was introduced to a sign painter and a neon signmaker, and it seemed like an alternative lifestyle to the one I’d left behind. On my return to the UK, I was probably attempting to carry on some American dream by training, but I loved the weird alchemy of illuminating a piece of bent glass tubing – the change from nothing to something.”
