lava lamps still delight and ‘bubble’
Like many great iconic retro products , the lava lamp was invented from an idea which the inventor stumbled across by accident. That is how the story goes with Edward Craven-Walker ,who was having a quiet pint in a pub one day, when his attention was drawn to a peculiar glass jar, a glass cocktail shaker, standing on the bar with ‘lumps’ in it ,floating in a clear liquid. When asked by Craven-Walker what the object was the Publican said that it was an egg-timer.The egg was placed in boiling water with the glass shaker. When the wax-goo in the shaker floated to the surface the egg was boiled. Craven-Walker, who had been a fighter pilot with Mosquitos in the Second World War,spent the next 15 years perfecting his idea to make what he had seen in the pub into a lamp. His work culminated in the lava lamp unleashed on the ’swinging-sixties’ scene of the early 1960s.The Astro Lamp was born.
I have one of these lamps (I am not alone!)- see above. If you are looking for a lava lamp you could do worse than go to the Glow Company’s website.I have discovered a wide selection of reasonably priced lamps- and you can read up on the History of the lava Lamp in further detail.