The banker who never forgot

NICHOLAS WINTON was born in 1909 and from his early life seemed destined for a life in business. He became a banker and worked on the Stock Exchange before the war.

After his work in Czechoslovakia and then war duty, he returned to britain and his work as a banker and a businessman. However, he never gave up pursuing humanitarian projects and sought the return of gold stolen from Jews by the Nazis.

He married and had three children. but his own life was touched by tragedy - the youngest of his three children had Down's syndrome and died in childhood.

When he reached his fifties, Mr Winton took early retirement and helped found the sheltered housing charity Abbeyfield, and also devoted extensive time to the charity Mencap. In 1983, his charity work was rewarded by an MBE for services to the community.

Mr Winton had been 30 when he went to Czechoslovakia to help evacuate children at risk from the Third Reich. But afterwards, he put what he saw as a wartime gesture behind him and never told his wife or three children that he had organised the Prague rescue.