Business in Maidenhead - Nobel Peace Prize nominations

Sir Nicholas Winton nominated for 2008 Noble Peace Prize.

Among the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize nominations this year is 98-year-old Sir Nicholas Winton from Maidenhead.

In 1939 Nicholas visited Prague to find that the city was filled with people escaping the Nazi occupation of the Sudetenland. He witnessed people living in awful conditions, many of them children.

Together with many like-minded people, Nicholas drew up a list of children that had been given permission to flee to Britain until the occupation was over. The list totalled 5,000 names. The Home Office in London agreed to let these children into Britain with the proviso that foster families where found for them.

The children came to London on a series of closed trains. This continued until the end of the summer in 1939. The last train did not make it out of the station as the war broke out on the day it was due to leave (1 September).

Sir Nicholas kept what he had achieved a secret, then at almost 80 years old; some of the 670 children that he had brought to Britain began to get in touch.

Nicholas stated "Normally events that happened a long time ago diminish in importance as time goes on."

"This story is the opposite - it keeps on growing, because there are more and more people. They keep breeding, you see!"

Named after Swedish inventor and scholar Alfred Nobel
Nobel left instructions in his will to create the prizes
First awards were for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace

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