Three generations of cyclists raise £6,000 for World Jewish Relief

Three generations of the same family have taken part in the annual London to Brighton bike ride — and raised more than £6,000 for World Jewish Relief.

Jack Swindon, 30, his uncle Leonard Rau, 54, and his grandfather Anthony Rau, 87, all cycled the 55 miles between London and Brighton.

The family picked World Jewish Relief as their chosen charity because there is a connection with the refugee children of the Second World War, the “kinder”, many of whom were rescued by the predecessor to WJR, the Central British Fund (CBF).

Jack explained: “My other grandfather came to Britain on the Kindertransporte. About five years ago, my grandfather Anthony (who is British-born) and my uncle Leonard took part in a charity bike ride from Berlin to London for the 80th anniversary of the arrival of the Kindertransporte”. That event took two weeks, but the family had been bitten by the cycling bug.

London to Brighton is comparatively easier and the Rau-Swindon crew took just under five hours to complete the ride. “My grandfather has been cycling his whole life but he hasn’t done anything of this magnitude before”, Jack told JN. “Even the Berlin ride didn’t demand this number of miles in one day.”

Anthony Rau, a member of St John’s Wood Synagogue, is the son of a doctor from Berlin ,who was involved in working with CBF. He said the London to Brighton ride was “either my idea or Leonard’s. When Leonard was in prep school I used to take him on the crossbars of my bike, totally illegally. Leonard is now a much keener cyclist. He lives in Chicago and does lots of long-distance rides and is very fit”.

He remembered as a boy his father, cousins and family friends being “really, really involved in the welfare of the ‘orphans’”. So when World Jewish Relief announced its Berlin bike ride, Anthony Rau immediately said he wanted to take part. Leonard flew over from Chicago to join him and repeated the trip this time round for London to Brighton.

Anthony Rau haș now set up a club at his synagogue which will tour areas of Jewish London — on bikes. “Cyclostyle” has made its first trip looking at some of the old Jewish cemeteries in the capital’s East End.