FOLLOWING the release of the heart-warming 2023 film ‘One Life’, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, more people today will be familiar with the name of Sir Nicholas Winton and his heroic efforts to save Jewish children from the Nazis during World War II.

However, far fewer will be aware of the connection between his brave actions and Powys.

Many of the children rescued by Sir Nicholas from German-occupied Czechoslovakia (which separated into Czechia and Slovakia in the 1990s) in 1938-39 eventually went to school in Llanwrtyd Wells, and have spoken of their affection for the town and its people, who took them in.

The link to Llanwrtyd remains intact today. Llanwrtyd is twinned with Czech town Česky Krumlov, while some of the rescued children donated the first gold link that occupies a place in the town’s mayoral chain.

Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines, who is also portrayed in One Life and was was nine when she arrived in the UK in the summer of 1939, has been part of return visits to the UK’s smallest town.

Lady Milena, interviewed by BBC Breakfast in early January, said of Llanwrtyd: “It's a place I've never forgotten.

"To introduce ourselves... we gave them a concert and sang, and we ended up singing ‘Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’. And from that minute, they adopted us.”

The Czech children went to school at the Abernant Lake Hotel, today an outdoor activity centre.

Established by the Czech government-in-exile for refugee children in Great Britain, the Czechoslovak State School taught around 140 pupils, most of whom were Jewish; but also Roman Catholic, Protestant or without religious affiliation.

The school was first located in Surrey and then Shropshire, before relocating to Llanwrtyd in 1943; it closed in 1945.

Instruction at the school was in Czech and all expenses, including the teachers’ salaries and children’s board, was paid for by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.

Vera Gissing was one of the refugee children, rescued from Prague and transplanted in Powys. She remembers at first being greeted by locals with a mixture of “curiosity and resentment”, but recalls that the introductory concert, mentioned by Lady Milena, broke the ice.

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“Somebody hit upon the brilliant idea of a concert and of course there’s no better way than music to get into a Welsh heart,” said Vera, speaking in a YouTube documentary published as part of an article on the school by Aberystwyth University.

“They all came, down to the last man, crowding into our hall. We danced our national dances, sang Czech songs and English songs.

“Then, at the end of the concert, we sang the Welsh national anthem and there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience.

“From then on, we were all their friends, all their doors were open to us and they couldn’t do enough for us.

“To this day we hold our reunions there. The love story goes to this day. We were very lucky and very happy in that little town.”

Vera later wrote a book about her experiences entitled ‘Pearls of Childhood’.

County Times: Pencil drawing of Abernant Lake Hotel, 1940. Bromsgrove School Archive. Reproduced by kind permission of Bromsgrove School Archive. Pencil drawing of Abernant Lake Hotel, 1940. Bromsgrove School Archive. Reproduced by kind permission of Bromsgrove School Archive. (Image: Bromsgrove School Archive. Reproduced by kind permission of Bromsgrove School Archive))

Refugees were also children of Czech soldiers and airmen who were serving in the British armed forces, or children of civil servants and high officials of the exiled Czech government.

Ruth Hálová, another who found herself calling Llanwrtyd her new home, says in the university article: “We were a varied group: most of the students were children from the children’s transports, whose lives, like mine, had been saved by Nicholas Winton.”

A Llanwrtyd Town Council spokesperson said: “Some of the children have maintained links with Llanwrtyd, for example, Lady Milena, who was on breakfast TV speaking about Sir Nicholas.

“The Czech children donated the first (gold) link to our mayoral chain. The Association of Jewish Refugees chose Llanwrtyd to be one of the 80 sites in the UK to have a tree planted to mark the 80th anniversary of the AJR.

“Lady Milena was at the ceremony at Dolwen Field.”