Heritage lost as Britain's crafts 'face extinction level event'

From rush weaving to kilt making, numbers of artisans are dwindling, but one charity hasa plan to save the sector

- Alice Fisher

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."

Malyon's art is on display this month during London Craft Week (LCW). His work will represent one of the many endangered crafts on show this year. "Over the centuries, crafts have ebbed and flowed; some die out but others grow to replace them," said Daniel Carpenter, executive director of Heritage Crafts, the charity that produces the annual red list of endangered skills. "But what we're seeing now is something different - it's like an extinction-level event."

Heritage Crafts' red list includes gloomy news. Cricket ball manufacture is extinct in the UK, while cricket bats are on the endangered list alongside kilt and bagpipe making. Construction of currach boats and the sporran are also on the critical list.

Carpenter said competition from low-wage economies overseas is a key factor. "And just the ease of being able to buy things from anywhere in the world - with no awareness of who's made it or what conditions they work in. Just with a click of a mouse."