When he was invited to speak on a BBC consumer affairs show about his secret rescue of 669 mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, Sir Nicholas Winton was told he couldn’t sit alongside his wife. Instead, he would be sat between two strangers. But as the That’s Life! presenter Esther Rantzen informed viewers of her guest’s remarkable heroism, an explanation for the show’s seating arrangement came into view. The women on either side of Winton were two of the now grown-up children whose lives he’d selflessly extended just before the Second World War. As Winton fought back tears, more surprises were in store for him.
“Can I ask?” said Rantzen. “Is there anyone in our audience tonight who owes their life to Nicholas Winton? If so, can you stand up please?” What followed remains one of the most breathtaking moments of 20th-century television: the entire audience surrounding Winton were revealed to be children he had rescued, all of them now adults eager to thank the man who, until that very moment, had been the total stranger to whom they owed their lives.
