‘A riotous assemblage of all manner of signs and objects’ – God’s Own Junkyard

Sitting amidst the insane and bizarrely beautiful chaos that is God’s Own Junkyard, Matthew Bracey laughs, but there is nothing too fanciful or hyperbolic about what he has just said.

…the insane and bizarrely beautiful chaos that is God’s Own Junkyard…

For anyone with a yen for neon – and who can resist that unique glow with its suggestion of pleasures close to hand (and likely dubious ones at that) – God’s Own Junkyard is a shrine where homage must be paid, a riotous assemblage of all manner of signs and objects celebrating this uniquely expressive product.

In a soon to be published memoir, Steel Dogs, Matthew tells the rollicking and picaresque story of his family’s involvement with neon light, centred on his late father Chris, who was widely recognised as one of the most original and important figures in the business.

As a skilled artist and electric sign-maker who learnt the trade at the hands of his own father, Chris was largely responsible for the distinctive look of Soho during the seventies and eighties. At the same time, as well as making considerable neon art works of his own, he was patching up signs and creating new ones, and – most importantly – storing them, as Matthew explains.

“Back in the late seventies he started hoarding it all, and they didn’t really know what they were going to do with it. It just ended up being in a big yard and gradually my dad would see something like this Ace sign here…and go and light it up in a corner… and then he’d go and get something like the Phillips sign from the factory and he’d light that up…and another side there’d be a statue of Mary and he’d light that up and gradually he sort of turned the junkyard into a kind of illumination. He made it electric.”

This early seeding of what was to result in the wild profusion of God’s Own Junkyard was far from Chris’s only activity with neon, and Matthew, involved with all aspects of the business from a tender age, inherited his father’s mantle.

“I started doing stuff for my dad when I was nine years old and he’d take us out in the van around Soho. My dad was such a nice guy, but fearless with it. A genuine guy and honest. He went down there and said to them ‘I want to completely redevelop Soho’.”

My dad was such a nice guy, but fearless with it. He went down and said to them ‘I want to completely redevelop Soho’.”

“And that’s what he did. One day he was up a ladder, doing a sign that had nothing to do with sex shops. He’d canvassed a few places earlier, but they thought he was a copper. After they’d seen him actually doing a sign they thought ‘oh, he’s alright’. They were all trying to beat each other, all trying to get the punters in.”

I put it to Matthew that being exposed to that world must have been shocking for a young boy, but he responds philosophically.

“It was a bit different then wasn’t it? Things were a lot rougher and tougher. You had a banged up old van, living in a cottage which didn’t have floorboards. Dad was trying to make a couple of signs a week, getting knocked by people for money, wearing jumpers knitted by my mum.”

“There’s quite a lot in there about Soho, quite a lot about the dark stuff that goes on round there, but I just thought I’m gonna put it all out there. Hopefully I don’t get slammed for it, but we’ll see.”

In all of this it’s easy to forget that the actual process of creating neon is a painstaking craft that takes years to learn. “You get a straight cane of glass and you have to turn it over a burner, a bit like a Bunsen burner. You can get halfway through one section and make one slight mistake and you’ve got to start again. And it could be hours of work. You’ve got to know what you’re doing.”

Steel Dogs looks set to be a fitting tribute to the colourful one-off that was Chris Bracey and his legacy, which continues to thrive today through the family business and the extraordinary and unique palace of neon that is God’s Own Junkyard. Matthew sums it up, finally.

“The book is a little bit off what we’d normally do, I suppose, but along with God’s Own Junkyard…it’s all part of the Bracey family. It’s quite rude! I’ve literally put it all out there.”