Forget the royal train, forget charters, forget the tractors that may be going to Weymouth and forget diversions.
On Saturday morning a train will arrive at London Liverpool St with 22 exceptional passengers on board. I don't know what the traction shall be, but it doesn't really matter. To explain properly I must whisk you back SEVENTY YEARS.......
In December 1938, 29 year old Nicholas Winton was packing for a skiing holiday is Switzerland. His companion urged him to come to Czechoslovakia instead. Adolf Hitlers forces had occupied the country's Sudetenland and refugees were living in appalling conditions.
Winton immediately started raising money and organising trains to save the children and when he returned to Britain began finding families and homes and sorting out visas, all whilst continuing his day job in London. Word of this plan spread through Prague and on his return to the makeshift office in a hotel, long queues formed outside of desperate parents. Between March and August 1939 eight Winton trains carried 669 children - mostly Jewish - to safety in Britain. Seventy years on, 22 of these children have once more departed Prague by steam train bound for Britain. More remarkable still, Sir Nicholas Winton, aged 100, intends to meet the train upon arrival at London.
Who can imagine the horror that befell the parents of those 669 children all those years ago? I intend being there, to show my thanks that people of our world will never surrender, and always champion the causes of others. Above all, I wish to glimpse someone who is the very definition of decent.
With thanks to The Independent for words and facts.
On Saturday morning a train will arrive at London Liverpool St with 22 exceptional passengers on board. I don't know what the traction shall be, but it doesn't really matter. To explain properly I must whisk you back SEVENTY YEARS.......
In December 1938, 29 year old Nicholas Winton was packing for a skiing holiday is Switzerland. His companion urged him to come to Czechoslovakia instead. Adolf Hitlers forces had occupied the country's Sudetenland and refugees were living in appalling conditions.
Winton immediately started raising money and organising trains to save the children and when he returned to Britain began finding families and homes and sorting out visas, all whilst continuing his day job in London. Word of this plan spread through Prague and on his return to the makeshift office in a hotel, long queues formed outside of desperate parents. Between March and August 1939 eight Winton trains carried 669 children - mostly Jewish - to safety in Britain. Seventy years on, 22 of these children have once more departed Prague by steam train bound for Britain. More remarkable still, Sir Nicholas Winton, aged 100, intends to meet the train upon arrival at London.
Who can imagine the horror that befell the parents of those 669 children all those years ago? I intend being there, to show my thanks that people of our world will never surrender, and always champion the causes of others. Above all, I wish to glimpse someone who is the very definition of decent.
With thanks to The Independent for words and facts.
Such a shame it can't! 
. I assume it's travelling north through Germany and then west into Holland, before passengers will board a ferry to Harwich?
.