How Nicholas Winton saved 669 children (and counting) from the Holocaust: ‘He became everybody’s grandfather’

Safe at last … Jewish children arriving in London in February 1939. Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

Nicholas Winton didn’t like to make a fuss. The British humanitarian was a modest and unassuming man, who was loth to grandstand about his achievements. The fact that he helped to save 669 children from the Holocaust was a secret he kept for many years. “If there was something that needed doing and nobody was doing it, Nicholas would step in,” says John Fieldsend. “That was the motto for his life.”

John Fieldsend (left) with his brother and their father, on the day the boys were put on the train to Britain. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian