Sir Nicholas Winton to be honoured with commemorative postage stamp, Royal Mail confirms

A man celebrated as "Britain's Schindler" for saving hundreds of children from the Holocaust will be immortalised on a Royal Mail stamp after a petition attracted more than 105,000 supporters.

Campaigners called for Sir Nicholas Winton, who arranged for eight trains to carry 669 mainly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to London in 1939, to be honoured with a commemorative postage stamp.

A change.org petition, launched by Jewish News, argued the stamp would be a "fitting tribute" to Sir Nicholas, who died last month aged 106. It received over 105,800 signatures, including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Conservative ex-minister Eric Pickles and Birmingham Edgbaston Labour MP Gisela Stuart.

A spokeswoman for Royal Mail said it was "pretty clear" that Sir Nicholas was a "worthy candidate" to be featured in a commemorative stamp set.

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The editor of the Jewish News, Justin Cohen, who co-authored the petition with editor Richard Ferrer, said:

Sir Nicholas, from a German-Jewish family kept his pre-war actions secret for over 50 years.

He was reunited with some of the children he saved on Esther Rantzen's That's Life TV programme in 1988, after his wife Grete found an old briefcase in the attic with lists of children and letters from their parents