To think many fell for the Captain Tom scam

[Binjob118]

I never understood all the fuss about Captain Tom. A rich old man walked around his garden and was lauded as a hero. Family then go on freebie holiday to Barbados whilst rest of us were locked down for Christmas. Then it turns out he was part of family scam to pay the family from book proceeds. No wonder so many people in this country are targeted by scammers, we are a gullible lot.

You'd think he had liberated Auschwitz with one foot while knocking kamikaze pilots out of the sky with a peashooter.

Did you know him? How do you know he was a decent and honest man?

And don't get me started on his duet with Michael Ball....

💀😂

No one on here knows him personally, it's ridiculous they state so emphatically that he was a great guy who was completely innocent when they have no idea what was going on in his head or family circle.

They seem like a strong encapsulation of Tory Britain to be fair. I bet they're all big Tories.

It's that exploitative American capitalist mentality of anything is fair game for a dollar, that was brought to the UK in the 80s. Greed is good and all that.

They knew what they were doing from the start. The mistake they made was not quitting while they were ahead, but no money is ever enough for people like that.

Maybe Tom was the angel he was made out to be (and good on him for his war efforts of course) but character traits tend to run in families. They're his close dependents.

I tried to avoid the whole circus but am prepared to give him the benefit as being well intentioned. Some of his family less so, given what's happened since.

When I was a young adult, pretty much all the men (and many of the women) who were late 50s/early 60s had served in WW2. I knew lots who had a more "interesting" (ie terrifying) time than TM. Some had been in Stalags, some were torpedoed, some Far East POWs, many in battles such as D Day and Anzio. They were real people, with human flaws and strengths and usually modest and reticent about their experiences.

As that generation dies away, I think we should really try not to infantilise/fetishise the few survivors as some sort of national pets, novelties on which to focus some fairly twee and simplistic ideas about that time and their service, the whole "Vera Lynn bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover let's have a cream tea" cosy nonsense that actually diminishes the sacrifices made by millions.

Couldn't have said it better

I try to respect the various ways in which people coped with the shock of lockdown and the terror of a new illness which we didn't know much about. The news, first from the continent and then from our own country, was appalling. The culture change was shocking - and we all adapted to it as best we could. Personally, I couldn't stomach the clapping and the incessant rainbows and so on (but I'll admit I did actually go out on the first Thursday to clap and felt daft and performative. And we did have a crochet rainbow hanging on our door to 'cheer up' the postie ... FFS. But I'm not immune to the things that everyone else seems to be doing.). It felt forced, mawkish and performative. Me saying this is how I feel, in no way denigrates the amazing sacrifices made by those who HAD to continue working.

The Captain Tom stuff struck me as about as tacky and sentimental as this country gets. I'm glad that at least some of the money raised found its way to the NHS. I'm glad it provided an outlet for some people to feel a bit less futile and powerless about the whole thing. But in my eyes it was mawkish and trite and made me cringe inwardly every time someone mentioned Plucky Captain Tom. That his family were on the make just makes me cackle now. Sorry.

There was no scam imo

From BBC and wiki:
"He eventually raised a whopping £38m for NHS Charities Together, which works with a network of more than 230 NHS Charities across the UK to support the organisation."

Not for his family, not for the foundation in his name, but £38m for NHS Charities Together. Give that man a knighthood.

The Captain Tom Foundation is a different matter. It's been badly managed.

As for the books: any book raising money for charity will make very clear what proportion of the proceeds will be handed over. The books that came out under his name didn't do that. Buyers would have to be a bit stupid to assume their purchase money was going to charity if it doesn't explicitly and clearly say so on the book.

For anyone getting angry about the salaries and expenses paid by charities, have a look at what the big ones pay. It's outrageous. I try to support small local charities because less of the money raised is siphoned off by management.

I found the whole thing nauseating from the start...it would have been a cold day in hell before I'd have donated a penny. But of course, I kept that to myself as you know war hero, old man, NHS, charity, blah blah. What kind of monster thinks it's a load of shit?!

He set out to raise £1k for an NHS workers charity. I hardly think he was some criminal mastermind plotting to take millions for his family. The initial thing blew up and he raised millions more, which did go to the charity as planned. I donated and don't have any regrets. The media made a big thing, so he got to have some fun meeting the queen, "writing" a book with help and getting lots of cards. Not sure why that would bother anyone.

The absolute shit show is what his daughter and others have done using his name since.

But I do think he partly knew or guessed what his daughter was up to, maybe too late.

I still can’t believe that people want to give a man a posthumous knighthood because he walked around a garden and people lost the run of themselves.

I think we infantilise elderly people, especially those very elderly. We are something of a bizarre nation! But Tom Moore was part charity part luck that he captured the media’s attention.

Absolutely this.

My grandad was evacuated from Dunkirk. He had amazing and heartbreaking stories to tell about WW2. He was also an alcoholic woman beater - and whilst I respect the former trait I worry that the latter would be forgotten over mawkish sentimentality over him.

I think it was a great snapshot of lockdown hysteria.

Put simply, whilst the nation was cooing and ahhhing and focussed on Captain Tom, thousands of others of his same generation were forcibly separated from their loved ones, missed out on final family contact and died amongst strangers because the government and its crony experts decided they knew what was best for them - not what those elderly people wanted.

My favourite snapshot was the MN threads of ‘use cheese in your coffee’ ‘starve your Guinea pig to death’ and ‘washing powder isn’t an essential purchase’. It was hysterical and those of us who dared to poke our hand up and say “Excuse me are you not all over reacting a little” got called granny killers.

My second favourite snapshot was a colleague of mine who repeatedly posted on social media that anyone who refuses the vaccine should be refused a ventilator if they get COVID and need one. My extremely overweight colleague who smokes that is and receives treatment for weight related conditions and COPD.

Raising money for the NHS by TM may have been well intentioned and noble, at least initially.

However, and this isn't his fault, but it's the reality of where that 38 million ends up. Much of that money would have been raised, in reality, by people who gave what little they could afford and in the hope that it would actually be a worthwhile cause. And bearing in mind the NHS costs the UK taxpayer as it is about 180 billion a year. People are already paying for the NHS via tax. What was the sense in it?

Yes exactly.

And meanwhile they were partying in no 10.

there’s ALWAYS a distraction, and too many people are sadly too ‘asleep’ to open their eyes and see what is happening the in the background. I will die on the hill of the Philip Schofield ‘scandal’ (that was known about for years) came out around the time the Partygate report was published. Our PM and his staff laughing at the nation and breaking the law whilst they threatened us if we did the same? Who wants to know that when a gay man has a consensual relationship with a colleague!

Absolutely this!

“When one is gripped by fear of a threat, real or imagined, their rational and higher cognitive capacities shut down, making them easily manipulable by anyone that promises safety from the threat.”

“The whole aim of practical politics”, wrote HL Mencken, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

“False flag operations are used because people generally do not have access to the details, so they are prone to rely upon what they’re told, and thus are easily deceived. People will, for the most part, believe what they are told in times of crisis, and so government officials, whether their motives are good or evil, capitalize on or completely fabricate the crises.” (Feardom: How Politicians Exploit Your Emotions and What You Can Do to Stop Them, Conor Boyack)

I said this from the start but no one would have it.

What elderly person with health and mobility issues would want to spend his days walking up and down.

More so, what daughter encourages it.

I think it came up, lovely idea but she pushed him to do it for longer than he'd probably intended.

Shame to put your own father through such for financial gain.

Why didn't any of them join him, or take over on his behalf. Selfish, greedy ans self-serving that's why.

Fair questions, but not what was asked

Captain Tom rose bushes, Captain Tom gin are just some of the merch that was being flogged with the proceeds going who knows where.
people lost their collective heads.