The Little World

Plastic models seem to take on a life of their own. And it may not be what the maker intended.

I blame the restless nature of the modeller and the ready availability of the internet to supply pictures and histories. You start out with a bog-standard box designed to do nothing more than attract money to a shop and you end up with an entire story in ten parts with cross-references and even crosser builders.

The Wallace was meant to be a simple historic British plane that flew the Himalayas with some sort of Reginald in the cockpit. That was what the decals catered for and probably what FROG intended it to be. A tribute to the pioneers of the Empire. The flying Colonel Blimps but not in airships.

Well, you can have lots of empires, if you think about it, and they don’t all have to be British. This probably came as a surprise to the Poms, and no-one was more vigorous in their attempts to prevent it from happening than they, but things do happen a long way away from London, and eventually people sort out what they want to do in the end.

Note the stage at which the Wallace has come – just about to be difficult.