Captain Tom's daughter

I think it was such a boring time that people needed a bit of light relief and the media seized on it- helped by pushy daughter

there were a couple of other old people doing things that they tried to make into something but the public imagination could only stretch so far

problem was that the daughter plucked, bled dry and slaughtered the golden goose. The trip to Barbados was in such bad taste given how everyone was being asked to live at the time - I’m not sure how the donor of the trip or the recipients couldn’t see that

as for captain tom - not going to begrudge an old man a bit of limelight in his last few years!

great post. My very very elderly neighbour was taken with him. So sad really.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

He was a total national lockdown hero. The country fell for him and the facile national icon myth, just like people banged pans and clapped handies for the NHS. Baaah 🐑
Weren't there even quickly printed children's books about Captain Tom? 😂

What a biatch.

Unfortunately any criticism of them at the time was met with howls of protest

Never mind outright criticism; even gently questioning it led to outraged insults, and for me the attitude around "rightthink" was a major problem with much about Covid - and not just that

Granted some of the conspiracy theories were a bit much, but it's still possible to rebut a view sensibly and ignore the herd mentality if we wish

This isn't a surprise at all. Charity is an inherently selfish act. People run charities to feel good about themselves and for their personal gain and people give to charities because it makes them feel good about themselves.

Until laws are passed to make it illegal for anyone involved in a charity to take any form of payment or gift in connection with that charity, people will always use them as a means to line their own pockets.

People who "work" for charities should pay to work for them, not receive payment from them.

The Barbados trip was literally insane. He was really elderly and willfully exposing him to COVID (which he died from) which was high risk of him dying from, showed me who his family really were.
Normal caring families were doing their best to protect their elderly, not risking bringing them on unnecessary trips.

I hope the investigation will be thorough and serious consequences given. I was pretty shocked with the £3million spa in her back garden but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Awful woman who has adored the public persona and been too greedy to put the brakes on, she thought she was untouchable. It is upsetting because it has really made people think twice before supporting charities that are 100% legitimate. She isn’t the only one and this isn’t the only charity that needs a full overhaul.

Didn't he catch Covid on a.free British Airways trip for him and the family to Barbados?

Exactly

Greedy Grifters

Maybe. But her response, calling it a hoax, was to a post saying something like 'like most performative activities in lockdown it was a hoax. Banging pans etc'.

Captain Tom's family benefitted from charity - inquiry - BBC News

Absolutely disgusted by this. His memory has been forever tarnished and his daughter shows no remorse about anything other than how her public reputation has been tarnished. The foreword of his book mentions that he hopes the money raised from his writing it will benefit charities.

He has another daughter who was very, very rarely seen or mentioned during his fundraisings and has hardly been spoken of since. I suspect that she was frozen out by Mrs. Ingram-Moore, so that she and her husband alone controlled access to their father. You see it time and again on the Cockroach Cafe and other "elderly parents" MN threads - a Golden Child who alienates and encourages cutting-off of a scapegoat or less-favoured sibling in order to control access to the older parents' wealth and/or property. I suspect this had happened in this family long before Coronavirus came to town. I feel enormously sorry for this other sister if this is true and she has to live with the domination of their elderly father for money-grubbing, mercenary purposes by her own sister. I've seen this happen many times - hurt and bewildered people whose parents "won't speak to them" because they've been spun a false narrative by Golden Child siblings who are benefitting in some material way, with no real respect for the elderly person involved.

And there will always be the question in a lot of minds of "was he deliberately complicit in it?". I'd like to think not. But it will always now carry the whiff of corruption and greed alongside all the good it wrought.

Oh absolutely! didnt they have a PR person involved right from the very start too? - it wasnt just some bloke randomly walking around his garden, it was a skilfully orchestrated campaign right from the start. It actually wasnt just some old bloke whom the papers picked up.

There were lots of other people without a PR campaign walking or going up and down stairs and they barely got a mention

I didn't like Captain Tom, and have always thought his daughter is a chip off the old block, a pair of utter grifters.
Unfortunately any criticism of them at the time was met with howls of protest. It's nice to feel vindicated!

It’s a bit early for all the vitriol. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

Hugely misleading headline, "shame" isn't even in her vocabulary.

@Comedycook Same

I thought he was doing laps of his nursing home until my dad pointed out that was the family home! Wealthy people who’ve got more than most and wanting more. Shameful

Even at the time I found the whole thing quite nauseating and am pleased I didn't donate a penny.

I got the impression Tom Moore enjoyed the recognition/publicity, that was my point.
Just because he was elderly doesn't mean he wasn't capable of free will (he came across, cognitively, sharp as a tack)... He was usually addressed on TV as Captain, I never once heard him say Tom will do.

Exactly. Poor Jimmy’s garden isn’t big enough for this kind of thing.

I seem to remember a story that came out around the same time as captain Tom about an elderly lady who was walking up and down the stairs (in her very normal house) for the NHS. No surprise which one became a national phenomenon.

I don't think the Captain was entirely innocent himself either.

All the media fuss- I mean there was that awful song with Michael Ball. It was all so crass. But it does show the mood of things at that time.

One good thing to come out of it was that he inspired Tony Hudgell. What an amazing and truly inspiring boy he is.

I donate to a charity that supports people with my son's rare disease. Two ladies in an office, (one of whom has the disease) co-ordinate support groups, information packs, childrens' activities, research funding, a yearly conference, a monthly magazine, and links to their counterparts in other countries.

They have given people like me far more than I could give back.

It went beyond that. It became a culture war where if you questioned it, some accused you of being anti-British. The Ingram-Moore’s were very clever in insuring that he was always photographed wearing medals, Dame Vera Lynn probably playing in the background. They made it appear like a patriotic duty to donate. If you didn’t support you were a leftie who hated this country. It was a crazy time.