My family friend Paco (Francisco) Robles, who has died aged 99, was one of the last survivors of the largest ever single day’s migration into the UK, when on 23 May 1937 about 4,000 people arrived in Southampton fleeing the Spanish civil war. Paco, who was 10 at the time, and his younger sister, Maria Jesus, were among 3,800 children on board the ageing former cruise ship the Habana, along with volunteer teachers, priests and supporters.
Two aunts of mine, Poppy and Chloe Vulliamy, had become involved in helping to get the children out of the country, and Chloe ran the first two hostels that Paco stayed in, as well as the last to close, in 1951. In 2017 Paco unveiled a blue plaque at the first house, in Wherstead Park in Suffolk, near Ipswich, and spoke emotionally of Chloe’s role as his surrogate mother. He was delighted to discover that the tree he had climbed there remained intact, 80 years later.
