Moths are the new Toads – Neill & Brown remembers Amy Johnson

An upcoming festival plans to celebrate the life of one of Hull’s most celebrated daughters and Neill and Brown is thrilled to be playing a part. Amy Johnson was famously the first woman to fly solo from the UK to Australia.

Her incredible journey saw her take off from Croydon in 1930 in her Gypsy Moth aeroplane, Jason. Amy went on to visit numerous destinations before landing in Brisbane, Australia 19 days later.

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of Amy’s death Hull will be hosting the Amy Johnson Festival which will incorporate arts and cultural events to highlight her achievements. The keystone of the festival will be the visually stunning installation of specially commissioned moths. The project has been spearheaded by Rick Welton and the innovative team behind the hugely successful Larkin Toads.

The moths will reflect the engineering background and the Gypsy Moth aeroplane that took Amy on her intrepid journey. They have been designed by local artist Saffron Waghorn which were then cast and produced by Ideal Standard.

The team will shortly be asking local artists to submit designs to adorn the moths which will be displayed on buildings around the city.

Local company Strata have been appointed to assist the team in installing the moths and have been working hard to engineer the best possible way to secure the moths to facades across the area.

Neill and Brown are proud to announce that not only were we one of the first companies in the area to pledge our support by sponsoring one of the moths, but we are excited to have additional involvement in the project.

One of Rick Welton’s aims is to have a moth installed in each of the cities where Amy stopped off on route to Brisbane including; Turkey, Pakistan, India, Thailand and Singapore. Neill and Brown have offered their assistance in shipping the beautiful moths to the far flung reaches of the globe to mark Amy Johnson’s courageous flight.