Sir Nicholas Winton receives special steam-powered tribute in hometown of Maidenhead
Sir Nicholas Winton – who saved hundreds of children by helping them flee the Nazis before the Second World War has received a special steam-powered tribute in his home town of Maidenhead.
The locomotive Tornado made a special stop there in honour of Sir Nicholas Winton, who died last week aged 106.
Sir Nicholas was known as “Britain’s Schindler” for organising eight trains to carry 669 mainly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to London in 1939, fearing they would otherwise be sent to concentration camps.
The Tornado pulled the British leg of The Winton Train, which recreated the children’s journey in 2009.
Decked in Union flags and Czechoslovakian flags, it stopped for four and a half minutes during a scheduled journey from London to Bristol in Maidenhead station, where there is a statue of Sir Nicholas, as a mark of respect.
Sir Nicholas’s son Nick travelled in the locomotive’s cab during the short journey after being invited by Peter Hedderly of the the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, which owns the Tornado.
Mr Winton said: “They arranged for a short stop here by my father, so he said would I like to be on it? I thought it would be a rather nice opportunity to say hi to dad in a different way.”
Sir Nicholas, from a German-Jewish family, received a knighthood in 2003 and a Hero of the Holocaust medal at Downing Street in 2010 from Gordon Brown, who said he was “a real hero of our times”.
The humanitarian Sir Nicholas also helped to find foster families for the children once they arrived in England, but did not disclose his astonishing bravery for half a century, even to his wife.
Tributes poured in for him after his death, from all around the world.
Prime Minister David Cameron said that “the world has lost a great man”.
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