Captain Sir Tom Moore dies at 100.

 Captain Sir Tom Moore dies at 100.

He was the nation's darling, a national treasure in every household up and down the land. The United Kingdom immediately took him to their hearts and embraced every single one of his charitable deeds. In another century he may well have been regarded as a saint but for now it may be as well to salute and richly acknowledge his Second World War sacrifices, his unwavering devotion to the cause and a fighting spirit that never dimmed at all. 

Today Captain Sir Tom Moore, the man we fell in love with last year because of what he did, sadly died at the grand old age of exactly 100. When the numbers of Covid 19 deaths were soaring into the stratosphere and all seemed inexorably lost and beyond hope, Captain Sir Tom entered our living rooms and lifted us to the loftiest heights with an act of generosity and heartfelt benevolence that will never ever be forgotten. There have been innumerable heroes and heroines throughout the ages who have never chased headlines or sought deserved recognition but the good Captain will always have a place in our minds and memories.  

These are the people who remain in the shadows, on the periphery of our attention. They raise vast sums for charitable causes at summer village fetes, jumble sales, and terminal illness fund-raisers who just want to give something back to their community because they feel it is their obligation and how grateful we are for their services. They run marathons throughout the year, climb mountains in some cases and then just insist on anonymity because they are the backbone of the country and everybody appreciates everything they do warmly. 

For Captain Sir Tom Moore the cause he was raising millions of pounds for was Covid 19, the now deadly virus that has now claimed the lives of over 100,000 people throughout Britain. We have now been informed that Captain Sir Tom died of pneumonia but the coronavirus symptoms were also cited as an indirect symptom which led to his passing. It is surely one of the saddest days this year since while all around the good Captain people were dying, Sir Tom was walking tirelessly and selflessly to raise millions for charity. 

What started as a gentle walk up and down his garden patio then became a national event, magnified and highlighted by social media, every TV channel and millions of radio stations across the world. Suddenly one of our oldest and most admirable war veterans had the bit between his teeth. He set off at his own leisurely pace, never fazed, never the glory hunter and just doing his bit for the country because he simply wanted to feel as though he was playing an active part in the rehabilitation of Britain's slowly dwindling morale. 

Britain and the world had had it up to here with those demoralising and agonising stories of death, those news bulletins that began to sound like the most depressing film or book you'd ever seen or read. But this was no fiction or non-fiction anecdote. This was happening in front of our eyes and one man stepped forward to make his handsome contribution. Nobody asked him to walk because he volunteered himself to be part of the generation that must have thought the world was about to end. But he just kept going on and on and on, never flinching, never complaining. He was just happy to make his lovable voice heard above the chaos and tempests that were raging around the world.

So today we say an effusive thankyou to the one man whose only flirtation with fame was a brief appearance on the BBC's delightfully silly but funny quiz show Blankety Blank in the late 1970s and 1980s. Now though Captain Sir Tom Moore has passed nobly into the annals of the history books. The man who single-handedly popularised garden patios and paving stones died when he reached his own personal milestone of 100 years on Planet Earth. Captain Sir Tom Moore will undoubtedly be remembered as one of England's greatest humanitarians. Britain is immensely proud of you, Captain Sir Tom. You'll never be forgotten.