Did the captain Tom foundation charity really use the money to build their own spa pool??

I found it all very distasteful from the off, but I knew it was proper dodgy when they took him to Barbados on a plane during Covid! At his age. No-one was doing that type of international travel at the time, let alone with a very vulnerable oldie. I think that Christmas we celebrated outdoors for a short time and most people didn't see their families.

The whole thing seemed incredibly desperate, exploiting the good fortune of genuinely scared people who saw him as a hero. The poor man was used to gain fame and generate a revenue stream. Terrible for those who genuinely believed in the cause, shameful for those who appear to have misled the public.

Don't be sorry, that's what happens when perfectly ordinary people become deified and made to be some heroic nation uniting figure by their own families, they come under intense scrutiny and not many people's lives are so perfect it can take that.

I hope I don't get the thread pulled. Sorry.

I didn't give them any money at the time because I find the whole old people/medals/war hero (when they were doing what millions were doing at the time) quite embarrassing, and so didn't pay it any attention, let alone donate.

Now it seems even barmier!

Exactly this - especially the bit about what happened if anyone dared to sound a note of caution

But then that's the nature of so many social media "campaigns", especially amongst those who have the attention span of a gnat; the excitement of whatever-it-is seems to be enough, and when that one's over they just ,move onto the next, apparently having learned nothing

I don't know anything about this particular charity.

What I do know about charities in general is that a lot of them are fairly thinly disguised money making machines for their owners.

I'd be very surprised if they had stolen donated cash but they will have had the right to charge all sorts of fees/commissions etc and they quickly add up. It was obvious at the time that they were ALL grifters - including Tom. He had been on Blankety Blank in his younger days and comes across as an over confident man on the make! The whole thing was absurd and made me cringe - at the time!

Yes-mass adoration but it’s easy to bang a few pots and pans. Not so easy to fix the problems. Like I say, a local hospital is called after him which is the height of insanity. Who on earth will know what it is in 50 years? Especially as it’s called CSTM.

Precisely.
Mass adoration/hysteria/accolades all round and god help anyone who dared say anything remotely against them.

Same.

Yeah always thought she was a wrong un. Self promoting. Looking back we were all trapped indoors watching what was fed to us, Captain Tom, banging sauce pans etc. Think we were doolally buying into it.
Friend of a friend got the furlough payment early at the start of pandemic. She put in new double glazing and went on holiday the first time we were "let out". Said she'd never been as well off.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

It is like the Diana funeral. The BBC kept telling us ‘the nation’ was grieving and how upset ‘the nation’ was. I didn’t know anyone who cared beyond thinking it was shame a mother of young children died.

The BBC put out daily updates on Captain Tom because apparently he was uplifting ‘the nation’. Again, no one I knew cared.

Who is this ‘nation’ that the BBC seem to think wanted Jimmy Saville on our screens, the don’t reflect anyone I know.

The media create and manipulate these stories and it is depressing that some people seem to lap them up. So betide anyone put their head above the parapet at the height of Captain Tom hysteria. The sensible people kept their heads down and mouth shut - but there was plenty of us thinking it was overhyped hooey.

It's interesting how so many thought he was simply old and vulnerable. I think he was quite aware.

To be fair, on the salary issue, I know someone who set up a charity (which has become very successful at fundraising) and pays themselves over £100k to run it. As said, it’s a successful -and worthwhile- charity, but when those that set them up benefit to such an obscene level it gets a bit murky.

I donated and so did DH. Hopefully someone benefitted.

Yes, a feelgood story on once and then maybe a fortnight later but every morning was coollective hypnotising of the nation.

Yes, exactly.

Strange times.

I do agree. Especially given lots of people were doing nice things at that time

Yes. Very few got anywhere near the coverage or follow-ups.

Unless they were Prince Andrew packing cupcakes for NHS workers in an attempt to rehab his image 🙄😡

After which he died of Covid - it was all part of that madness sadly.

i felt incredibly uncomfortable and uneasy from the start, it smacked of exploiting a vulnerable old man in poor health. The longer it went on the more sickening it became.
Apparently the trustees were unaware of this building yet the son in law is one of them I believe.
It smacks of misuse of funds and it’s been a dodgy, self-aggrandising process from the beginning.

I’m assuming because that would then absolve the government of funding it (which it should be)

Sorry for sounding thick but why can't the NHS receive charity money for equipment etc?

From this thread I see it can only be used for non medical items such as waiting rooms and staff rooms?

100% agree. The ease with which the general public buys into so many nonsensical but popular causes that ‘capture the mood of the nation’ is actually frightening. There’s a very weird Orwellian / group think vibe in this country.