Back in the ‘swinging sixties’ no seriously cool pad would be without one. For a while owning a lava lamp was as much a mark of being in tune with the zeitgeist as Carnaby Street, Biba, The Beatles and the Stones.
Inevitably perhaps the fascination for these hippy-trippy lights, which really took off 60 years ago after the press revealed that Ringo Starr had ordered one, eventually seemed to fade and by the mid to late seventies they tended to be perceived as rather naff.
However, there was always a niche market and in recent years the lava lamp has become significantly popular again, not least amongst collectors.
It boasts a curious history too, having been invented not by some super-hip flower child but by former wartime RAF pilot and pioneering naturist Edward Craven Walker who came up with the idea after seeing a homemade egg timer made from a cocktail shaker bubbling on a pub stove.The lava lamp production company Mathmos, based in Poole,Dorset, was originally founded in 1963 and has continued to operate as the beating heart of the company ever since.
It is launching an exclusive limited-edition red vinyl Rolling Stones Astro lava lamp today.Only 1,000 are being made and are being sold exclusively via the Mathmos website, except for 50 which were made available earlier today at the official Rolling Stones store in Carnaby Street. But those have already sold out, even though they carried a £170 price tag.
The limited-edition lamp showcases the signature Astro design with a custom anodised red vinyl base and cap etched with grooves reminiscent of those on vinyl records.
It also has The Rolling Stones’ famous ‘lick’ logo screen-printed on the glass bottle to create the illusion of a floating emblem. Each one bears a laser-etched limited-edition number and comes in packaging inspired by musicians’ flight cases.
An appropriate time I think to revisit a magazine feature I wrote marking the 50th anniversary of the lava lamp back in 2013.
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‘Buy my lamp and you won’t need drugs‘ – inventor Craven Walker
By Jeremy Miles (originally published in 2013)
With its gloopy, trippy, luminous light, the gently bubbling Astro lava lamp will forever be associated with the turn-on, tune-in, drop -out generation of the 1960s.
Co-organiser of the famed Woodstock Festival, Wavy Gravy, called it “Amazing!” adding with breathless enthusiasm that: “It causes the synapses in your brain to loosen up.”
In fact this ultimate addition to any 1960s hippy pad owes its origins to a Dorset based former World War Two RAF pilot, a remarkable imagination and that old business trick of being in the right place at the right time.
The man behind the lava lamp – currently celebrating its 50th anniversary – was the late Edward Craven Walker, a remarkable daredevil, inventor and pioneering naturist who shot the first underwater naked films to squeak past the censor.
Whatever else the dapper Craven (as he was invariably known) was, he was certainly no hippy. Not that he minded. Once aware that everyone from The Beatles to The Grateful Dead were making much of his new invention, he made a public statement: “If you buy my lamp, you won’t need drugs.”
The endorsement of the counter-culture however did Craven no harm. The lava lamp was actually inspired by spotting a Heath Robinson style oil-filled egg-timer in a pub in the New Forest.
Craven set about creating a lamp that worked on roughly the same principal – using heated oil and melted wax. The lava lamp went into production at his factory in Poole in 1963. It has been based in the town ever since.
The first two lava lamps on the market – The “Astro” and “Astro Baby” – immediately chimed with the emerging sixties hipsters but marketing was much tougher in those pre-internet days. In fact the original lava lamps were delivered around the country in a rickety old secondhand Post Office van.
Craven’s second wife, Christine Baehr, recalls how exciting life was when the lava lamp suddenly became the must-have accessory for the hip and the happening.
It appeared in cult TV programmes like The Prisoner and Doctor Who. No self respecting follower of fashion would be without one. It was even deemed an official design classic. Not that the trend-setters had a monopoly. A lava lamp was also featured in the decidedly uncool sit-com George and Mildred.
Down in Poole the Walkers suddenly found themselves at the sharp end of the swinging sixties. “Things seemed to move so quickly. It was terribly exciting,” says 69-year-old Christine who still lives on the Dorset-Hampshire border. “Psychedelia was a long way from our thoughts but it was the height of Beatlemania and one day a shop in Birkenhead phoned and said: ‘We thought you might be interested to know that Ringo Starr has just been in and bought one of your lamps.’
“That was it! We had no experience in marketing or PR but we didn’t waste any time in getting that particular message out. Things went absolutely crazy. We suddenly found ourselves in this bubble which just seemed to keep expanding. It was enormous fun.” That single Beatle endorsement had put them well and truly on the map.
Christine met Craven in 1960 when she was in her early twenties. They married soon afterwards. She remembers him as a man “full of energy and ideas.” His controversial lifestyle and the notoriety he drew from his naturist films were, says Christine, of little concern: “It didn’t worry him at all because he felt there was nothing to worry about.”
Cressida Grainger took over the Poole company in the early 1990s and now runs it as Mathmos – a name derived from the seething subterranean lake by in the cult 1960s sci-fi movie Barbarella.
She has similar memories of the devil-may-care Craven. She first encountered him when she found a growing demand for lava lamps on a vintage stall she ran at Camden Market. It occurred to her and her then business partner that they might be able to source the lamps direct from the Poole company. After doing a deal with the Walkers she turned the then failing company around and became majority shareholder.
Cressida remembers Craven as a force of nature. “He used to fly helicopters, drive speed-boats and fast cars. He was always inviting me to go in his helicopter. I used to think ‘If you hadn’t crashed so many Jaguars I might go with you!’ But he was great fun: very bright and a very unconventional thinker.”
She recalls her initial business meeting with the Walker’s at their nudist camp at Matchams just outside Bournemouth but denies rumours that she demanded that Craven and Christine keep their clothes on for the meeting.
“That wasn’t what happened at all” she laughs. “It was however suggested that I might like to take my clothes off but I declined and the meeting went ahead with all us fully clothed…which was a great relief. ”
Although lava-style lamps are produced all over the world, Cressida Granger insists that the Mathmos lamps, still finished and filled in Poole, are unique, the precise contents a closely guarded secret.
So, I asked, has the secret formula been memorised by a select team before being encrypted and locked in a safe somewhere? I’m afraid not,” replied Cressida. “It’s written down and kept in a purple folder.” Silly of me. Of course, it would be.
To celebrate the 50th birthday Mathmos has launched a limited edition Astro lava lamp complete with certificate signed by Christine. The company has also produced a new heritage collection and has just completed a season of commemorative events at the London Design Festival. This included the unveiling of the world’s largest lava lamp – a 200-litre monster – at the Royal Festival Hall.
