Aylmer Vallance

Society

Britain's tin red line

• 07 August 2006

Taken from the New Statesman archive, 26 May 1951. This visit to a factory floor in Walthamstow is also, I guess, a return to the nursery floor of the writer's childhood. Aylmer Vallance (1892-1955), a Scot, was a long-time deputy editor of the New Statesman. He had been a real soldier himself, serving in both world wars, though not in a bright uniform but in military intelligence. As for Britains, the brand survives in US ownership, selling soldiers made in China mainly to collectors. Selected by Brian Cathcart