page_title: Captain Tom
section_title: 100th birthday
hierarchical_section_title: Captain Tom / Tom's 100th Birthday Walk / Recognition / 100th birthday
caption_attribution_description: Hawker Hurricane LF363 4a
context_page_description: Captain Sir Thomas Moore, popularly known as “Captain Tom”, is a former British Army officer and centenarian, known for his achievements raising money for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  Moore served in India, the Burma campaign, and Sumatra during the Second World War, and later became an instructor in armoured warfare. After the war, he worked as managing director of a concrete company and was an avid motorcycle racer.
  On 6 April 2020, at the age of 99, he began to walk laps of his garden in aid of NHS Charities Together, with the goal of raising £1,000 by his hundredth birthday. In the 24-day course of his fundraising he made many media appearances and became a popular household name in the United Kingdom, generating much interest in his life story, earning a number of accolades and attracting over 1.5 million individual donations. He featured in a cover version of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone", with proceeds going to the same charity. The single topped the UK music charts and made him the oldest person to achieve a UK number one.
context_section_description: Over a week before Moore's 100th birthday, so many cards had been sent to him that Royal Mail had had to introduce dedicated sorting facilities and around 20 volunteers were recruited to open and display them, at the local Bedford School. By his birthday over 150,000 cards had been received.
  Royal Mail announced that all stamped post between 26 April and 1 May would be postmarked "Happy 100th Birthday Captain Thomas Moore NHS fundraising hero 30th April 2020". Royal Mail also celebrated his birthday by painting a postbox, near his home, the shade of blue used by the NHS, with a golden balloon and inscription on the side.
  On the morning of his birthday, a Hawker Hurricane and a Spitfire from the Royal Air Force's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight performed a flypast over Moore's house. In the afternoon, a second flypast featured two Army Air Corps helicopters, a Wildcat and an Apache.
  Michael Ball appeared live on BBC Breakfast to sing "Happy Birthday to You" to Moore. Birthday congratulations were also made by Boris Johnson, Harry Kane, and Prince Charles. Moore also took a video call from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres.
  Instead of the standard 100th birthday message from Queen Elizabeth II, he received a personalised card, presented in person by the Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire, Helen Nellis.
caption: Hawker Hurricane LF363, one of the aircraft used in the RAF flypast (seen in 2011)
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