British Kindertransport escapee officially world’s oldest living radio host

A British-Israeli journalist who made aliyah in 2004 has been awarded a Guinness World Record as the oldest radio talk show host at the age of 93.

Holocaust survivor Walter Bingham, who was born in the Weimar Republic in 1924, was acknowledged as Israel’s oldest field journalist in 2015.

He has now been honoured by the Guinness Book of Records, for his radio show ‘Walter’s World.’

His remarkable life saw him witness Nazi book burnings before escaping to England on the Kindertransport, where he lived in a kibbutz-type community before joining the war effort, taking part in the D-Day landings at Normandy. He later earned the Military Medal for bravery in the field.

In one of his first forays into journalism, he interviewed former Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

The German official, who denied any knowledge of the Holocaust was the first to be hanged after the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

Later, from London, he wrote for the earliest incarnation of the Jewish News newspaper – then called ‘Shalom’ – and hosted Spectrum Radio from Brent Cross and Battersea, as well as the Jewish programme on Sound Radio based in Hackney.

He even took to acting, appearing in several ‘Harry Potter’ films and was Santa Claus in Harrods and Selfridges.

Now, living in Jerusalem at the age of 93 and often to be seen in his trademark flat-cap, Bingham has been awarded a certificate from Guinness World Records, as the “oldest (living) radio talk show host,” with ‘Walter’s World’ now in its 13th year.

Speaking to Jewish News this week, he said: “Thank God I am physically fit and mentally agile, in fact on a good day I feel like 40 and on a bad day like 50. But in Jerusalem all roads only go ‘uphill’ and every week they get steeper. That’s what happens when you get old.”