More hunted than hunting

摘要

There may be companies more stereo-typically British than Pilkington, a glassmaker founded in 1826, but it is hard to think of another that so neatly fits the bill: fighter pilots in Spitfires peered through windshields made using its glass in the Battle of Britain; it owes its fortune to a determined inventor who had an epiphany while washing the dishes; and, this week, it was bought by a Japanese company with nary a murmur of protest.