Sir Tom Moore

Captain Sir Thomas Moore  popularly known as "Captain Tom", was a British Army officer and centenarian, known for his achievements raising money for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday during the COVID-19 pandemic

Moore served in India, the Burma campaign during the Second World War, and later became an instructor in armoured warfare. After the war, he worked as managing director of a concrete company and was an avid motorcycle racer.

On 6 April 2020, at the age of 99, he began to walk round his garden in aid of NHS Charities Together, with the goal of raising £1,000 by his hundredth birthday. In the 24-day course of his fundraising he made many media appearances and became a popular household name in the United Kingdom, earning a number of accolades and attracting over 1.5 million individual donations. In recognition of his efforts, he received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award at the 2020 ceremony. He performed in a cover version of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" sung by Michael Ball, with proceeds going to the same charity. The single topped the UK music charts, making him the oldest person to achieve a UK number one.

On the morning of his hundredth birthday the total raised by his walk passed £30 million, and by the time the campaign closed at the end of that day had increased to over £32.79 million (worth almost £39 million with expected tax rebates). His birthday was marked in a number of ways, including flypasts by the Royal Air Force and the British Army. He received over 150,000 cards, and was appointed as honorary colonel of the Army Foundation College.

On 17 July 2020, he was personally invested as a Knight Bachelor by the Queen at Windsor Castle.

In January 2021 Moore was hospitalised after testing positive with COVID-19. He died on 2 February at the age of 100.

Moore was born in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 30 April 1920 and grew up in the town. His father, Wilfred, was one of a family of builders, and his mother was a head teacher. Moore was educated at Keighley Grammar School and started an apprenticeship in civil engineering.

Military service

Moore was conscripted in the 8th Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment (8 DWR) in May 1940, stationed in Cornwall, eight months after the beginning of the Second World War. He was selected for officer training later that year, and attended an Officer Cadet Training Unit before being commissioned as a second lieutenant on 28 June 1941.

On 22 October 1941, Moore became a member of the Royal Armoured Corps. This was because 8 DWR became an armoured unit designated as the 145th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps. Later that year, he was transferred to the 9th Battalion (9 DWR) in India, which had converted to become the 146th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps. While in India he was tasked with setting up and running a training programme for army motorcyclists. He was initially posted to Bombay (now Mumbai) and subsequently to Calcutta (now Kolkata).

He was promoted to war-substantive lieutenant on 1 October 1942 and to temporary captain on 11 October 1944.

As part of the Fourteenth Army, the so-called "Forgotten Army", he served in Arakan in western Burma (now Myanmar) – where he survived dengue fever.

 Moore returned to the UK in February 1945, to take a training course on the inner workings of the Churchill tanks, learning to become an instructor. He did not return to the regiment, remaining as an instructor and the Technical Adjutant of the Armoured Vehicle Fighting School in Bovington Camp, Dorset, until he was demobilised in early 1946.

Career and hobbies

After leaving the army, he worked as a sales manager for a roofing materials company in Yorkshire, and later as managing director of a Fens-based company manufacturing concrete, Cawood Concrete Products Ltd., which was renamed March Concrete Products Ltd. after he led a management buyout in 1983. The company was sold to ARC in 1987.

For 64 years, he organised the DWR's annual reunion.

Moore raced motorcycles competitively – he purchased his first when he was 12 and wore the number 23. He rode a Scott motorcycle, winning several trophies. Moore was a member of the Keighley and District Photographic Association between 1934 and 1936, as had been his father.

He was a contestant in the Christmas Day 1983 edition of the BBC Television game show Blankety Blank.

Tom's 100th Birthday Walk

On 6 April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with his 100th birthday approaching, Moore began a fundraising campaign for NHS Charities Together, a group of charities supporting staff, volunteers and patients in the British National Health Service (NHS). He aimed to complete one hundred 25-metre (27-yard) lengths of his garden, ten lengths per day, with the help of a walking frame, branding the endeavour "Tom's 100th Birthday Walk for the NHS".

The initial £1,000 goal having been realised on 10 April, the target was increased, first to £5,000, and eventually to £500,000 as more people around the world became involved. Contributions rose exponentially after British media publicised the endeavour, beginning when Moore made a brief appearance by telephone, on Michael Ball's Sunday programme on BBC Radio 2 on 12 April.

 Moore, who joined Twitter in the same month, used the site to express joy at the public's generosity in donating such a large amount of money.

He achieved his target of one hundred lengths on the morning of 16 April, watched at a safe distance by a guard of honour from the 1st Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, the regiment into which the DWR were merged in 2006. He said, he would not stop, and aimed to do a second hundred.

On the morning of his birthday he had raised £30 million

The JustGiving page for his campaign closed at the end of that day; the final amount raised subsequently being stated there as £32,796,475 (plus another £6,173,663.31 expected in tax rebates under the Gift Aid scheme)– a record for a JustGiving campaign, beating the previous record of £5.2 million raised (partially posthumously) by Stephen Sutton.

More than 1.5 million individuals donated.

Funds raised by Moore are being spent on such things as well-being packs for National Health Service staff facilitating rest and recuperation rooms, devices to enable hospital patients to keep in contact with family members, and community groups who support patients once discharged from hospitals.

Once his campaign ended, Moore encouraged people to continue to donate, directly to the NHS Charities Together's urgent appeal, and subsequently via his own Captain Tom Foundation.

On reaching £5 million, Moore explained his motivation:

When we started off with this exercise we didn't anticipate we'd get anything near that sort of money. It's really amazing. All of them, from top to bottom, in the National Health Service, they deserve everything that we can possibly put in their place. They're all so brave. Because every morning or every night they're putting themselves into harm's way, and I think you've got to give them full marks for that effort. We're a little bit like having a war at the moment. But the doctors and the nurses, they're all on the front line, and all of us behind, we've got to supply them and keep them going with everything that they need, so that they can do their jobs even better than they're doing now.

Number one single

To mark Moore's 100th length, the singer Michael Ball sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" for him live on BBC Breakfast. Within 24 hours, the performance was made into a digital single featuring the NHS Voices of Care Choir, and Moore's spoken words.

 Released by Decca Records, on 17 April, with all proceeds going to NHS Charities Together, the recording topped the United Kingdom's "The Official Big Top 40" chart. It sold almost 36,000 copies in its first 48 hours, and was "biggest trending song" as measured by the Official Charts Company.

 On 24 April, it went straight to No. 1 in the weekly "Official" UK Singles Chart, making Moore the oldest person to achieve that position and meaning that he was at No. 1 on his 100th birthday, and became a one-hit wonder.

Moore's bid to reach No. 1 was boosted when his leading competitor, the then-current No. 1, The Weeknd, used Twitter to ask people to support Moore and make him No. 1 for his 100th birthday.

The Weeknd's song, "Blinding Lights", duly dropped to No. 2.

Recognition

On 16 April, after Moore's 100th length, a UK Government spokesman said:

the Prime Minister will certainly be looking at ways to recognise Tom's heroic efforts.

Brigadier Andrew Jackson, Colonel of the Yorkshire Regiment, described Moore as:

an absolute legend [from] an exceptional generation that are still an inspiration for our Yorkshire soldiers today.

Via video link, Moore was guest of honour at, and opened, the NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and the Humber, in Harrogate, on 21 April.

On 23 April, he was given a Pride of Britain award in recognition of his efforts, after "thousands of nominations" were received.

He was appointed the first Honorary Colonel of the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, Yorkshire, a training centre for soldiers under 18, on his 100th birthday.

When acting in that capacity, he was addressed as "Colonel Tom".

He also received the Yorkshire Regiment Medal for his "outstanding contribution to our military effectiveness and military reputation".

 He made his first visit to the college on 10 September, when he was Chief Inspecting Officer at their annual graduation parade.

Also on his birthday, he was named a "Point of Light" by the Prime Minister.

In early May, he was awarded a gold Blue Peter badge, the highest accolade issued by the BBC Television children's programme.

Keighley Town Council stated that they would grant Moore the Freedom of Keighley.[59][60] On 12 May, he was granted the Freedom of the City of London, via a video call.

By 20 April, more than 800,000 people had signed a petition calling for Moore to be knighted.

 Late on 19 May, it was announced that he was to be made a Knight Bachelor following a special nomination by the prime minister.

 The knighthood is part of the 2020 Special Honours,[65] and was conferred on 20 May.

 The investiture, by Elizabeth II, took place outdoors, in the quadrangle at Windsor Castle, on 17 July; Moore was the only person honoured at the ceremony, and it was the Queen's first official engagement in person since the start of the COVID-19 lockdown.[

She used the sword that had belonged to her father George VI.

 On 7 September, Sir Gary Hickinbottom, the Knight Principal of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor presented the Knight Bachelor's Certificate (the official documentation of a Knight Bachelor) to Moore at his home, and gave him the ISKB's official Neck Tie. At the same ceremony Robert Pooley, the CEO of Pooley Sword, presented him with a Knight Bachelor's Sword.

Cranfield University, near Moore's home in Bedfordshire, awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Science. It was presented to him by Baroness Young, Chancellor of the university, and Sir Peter Gregson, Vice-Chancellor, in a video call.

 He was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of the University (D.Univ) by the University of Bradford as part of their 2020 Graduation Ceremonies.

In July, Moore became the first member and captain of the Football Association and England National Football Team's Lionhearts squad. This honour was presented by former England captain David Beckham