Captain Tom

Thomas Moore served in India and Burma during the Second World War, later instructing others in armoured warfare before a postwar career running a concrete company and racing motorcycles. On 6 April 2020, during Britain's first COVID-19 lockdown, he began walking 100 lengths of his garden to raise £1,000 for NHS Charities Together before his 100th birthday on 30 April. Over 24 days he became a fixture on British screens, attracting over 1.5 million individual donations that passed £32.79 million by the close of his birthday campaign. He recorded "You'll Never Walk Alone" with Michael Ball - it topped the UK chart, making him the oldest person to reach number one - and on 17 July 2020 Queen Elizabeth II knighted him at Windsor Castle. He died 2 February 2021 at Bedford Hospital, treated for pneumonia and testing positive for the virus whose toll had made him famous.