A retired British engineer has become a local celebrity in Prague after taking it upon himself to maintain the Czech capital's memorials to victims of the Holocaust.

Trevor Sage, who move to Prague in 2006, regularly takes to the streets to clean the 311 memorial stones that mark where a Holocaust victim once lived. Set in the city's pavements, the cobble-sized, brass-plated stones detail the Czechs' names and dates of birth, as well as where and when they died.

If it were not for Mr Sage's efforts with cleaning fluid and sponge, the scattered memorials would disappear under the city’s grime. Since he began in July, his story has been covered by newspapers and television news channels, and people now stop him on the street with words along the lines of “So you’re the Englishman I’ve read about.”

The 59-year-old from London has no personal or family connection to the Holocaust; his motivation, he says, is the preservation of memory.

“It is just to raise the profile of the victims of the Holocaust. Their memory needs to be kept alive as it is too easy to forget what occurred,” he told The Telegraph. “The way things are going around the world, not just in Europe, is rather worrying so I think it is essential that the memories are kept alive so we don’t forget the lessons of the past.”