The public’s huge response to the 100-year-old, who has raised £32m for the NHS, shows how much it needs some good news
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When Captain Tom Moore set out with his walking frame at the start of April he had a modest goal: to raise £1,000 for the NHS by walking up and down his garden 100 times before his 100th birthday. One of his daughters, Hannah Ingram-Moore, thought it might make a nice little story for the local media, and so on 7 April her consultancy firm, Maytrix, knocked up a press release heralding his mission.
The release included a photograph of the then 99-year-old wearing a navy blue fleece, pushing a walking frame on which was balanced a panama hat and his stick. “We are all being rightly advised to stay home, stay safe and protect our NHS, and that is exactly what local 99-year-old Tom Moore is doing,” the copy began – and, with it, one of the most startlingly successful fundraising stories of our time.
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