Winton Celebrations
1 July 2016
On Friday 1 July, I took part in an occasion to mark the first anniversary of the death of Sir Nicholas Winton (Grenville 27) and the 77th Anniversary of the arrival of his largest single transport of 241 children, on 1 July 1939 departing from Harwich Station to London Liverpool Street.
The day started with an early morning trip to London Liverpool Street Station, to catch a commemorative train to Harwich, filled with surviving kinder, school children and members of the public. Sir Nicholas’ children were also in attendance.
The train pulled into to Harwich International, the port where Sir Nicholas’ kinder would have arrived in England. We then boarded vintage Routmaster Buses to travel past the site of the Warner’s holiday camp in Dovercourt where the kinder were housed, before arriving at Sir Nicholas Church for a service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance. The service was extremely well attended, with over five hundred people present.
After the service we watched a special screening of original film showing kinder arriving in Harwich and a documentary about the Kindertransports at the Electric Palace Cinema. Over 1,000 children from Harwich took part in a celebratory carnival in the streets and special exhibitions were also on display.
We were then treated to a return trip on the commemorative train to London.
The whole community came together to celebrate the achievements of Sir Nicholas for the day. It was a delight to see the work of an Old Stoic memorialised by so many people.
Anna Semler (Nugent 05)
Old Stoic Society Director