In the Spring of 2020, while the United Kingdom locked down, a charming elderly gentleman received a lot of news coverage for walking around his garden, raising money for the NHS.

Captain Tom Moore, then 99, became a regular television feature.

I watched the daily reports of him walking laps around his garden with the aid of his Zimmer frame (walker) and wondered why anyone would raise money for the NHS, which receives eye-watering sums of taxpayer money. However, this was also the time when Britons were banging pots and pans every Thursday evening at 8 p.m. to show their support for the NHS. Our household did not participate.

Queen Elizabeth II knighted Moore in July 2020, in a brief, socially-distanced, private ceremony in the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Captain Sir Tom Moore died several months later in Bedford Hospital, not far from his home, on February 2, 2021, aged 100. He was being treated for pneumonia and, not surprisingly, contracted COVID-19 in hospital.

Shortly before his demise, he had joined family members on a trip to Barbados, donated by British Airways.

In 2020, I wondered how news of his 100 laps around his garden came to the attention of the media. I was also impressed with the size of his garden, which was immense, especially by British standards. I thought that he must have done very well for himself after he demobbed in 1945.

On July 7, 2023, a Telegraph article answered my questions: ‘The hero, his daughter and the million-pound spa — the inside story of Captain Tom’s legacy’. What an eye-opener it is.

Excerpts follow, emphases mine:

Captain Tom Moore turned out to be the man for that moment. In walking 100 laps of the garden outside his Bedfordshire home to raise money for NHS Charities Together, the 99-year-old cheered a nation. Here was our fabled Dunkirk spirit personified: a retired Army officer determined to do what he could for the country, no matter his age or infirmity.

His relatively modest target of attracting £1,000 in donations was dwarfed by the £38.9 million he eventually raised when the media picked up the story of his walking and ran with it. Almost overnight, Captain Tom was transformed from an unknown figure, who had previously complained about feeling invisible as an old person, to a global inspiration. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II that July in the grounds of Windsor Castle. The Duke of Cambridge described him as a “one-man fundraising machine”.

The article says that the idea for 100 laps came not from the war veteran himself but from his son-in-law:

The “machine” was not powered by just one man; it required the assistance of others. It was Captain Tom’s son-in-law, Colin Ingram-Moore, who reportedly came up with the idea for the sponsored walk in the first place. He and his wife, Hannah Ingram-Moore – Captain Tom’s daughter – ran a consultancy business called Maytrix. For each lap of the garden, Maytrix would donate £1 to the umbrella group for charities supporting the NHS, in lieu of a celebration for Tom’s 100th birthday.

His daughter Hannah put the PR into motion:

Hannah, now 52, set the ball rolling with publicity – a ball that was quickly to pick up its own unstoppable momentum. She fired off a press release to local media to announce her father’s fundraising enterprise.

Hannah created the persona surrounding her father, even resurrecting his Army rank. Normally, only Majors and above may use their rank once retired from service, however, Hannah pressed on:

It was also she who deployed his old military title, despite him having left the Army in 1945.

“We have to call you something. We’ll call you Captain Tom,” she said, recalling the conversation to television presenter Lorraine Kelly on a podcast in 2021. “And he went, ‘but I’m retired.’ And I went, ‘nobody cares.’ ”

It was an odd thing, this campaign and its coverage:

When the story was picked up by national news outlets, donations flooded in, along with interview requests. The cult of Captain Tom had brought salvation of sorts to a nation in its hour of need.

The article says that the house and grounds were not Sir Tom’s but the Ingram-Moores’. That explains a lot. The army veteran moved in after his second wife, Hannah’s mother, died:

Pamela, who struggled with her mental health, died in 2006 and Captain Tom moved in with the Ingram-Moores, their son Benji and daughter Georgia in Bedfordshire not long after.

The 18th-century Old Rectory where they live is the largest house in the village, where many of the neighbours claim not to know Hannah well. Those who have encountered her describe her variously as “perfectly nice” and a “shrewd businesswoman” …

Hannah was raised in Kent, the younger of two daughters born to Captain Tom and his second wife, Pamela. In a social media post, she described growing up in “a terraced house in north Kent … [T]he house was modest, the garden small”. She loved school and liked to “play outside, climb trees, help service the cars and play with [her] Pippa dolls”. Her older sister, Lucy Teixeira, is a homoeopath based in Reading.

We found out more about Hannah and her husband:

Hannah’s website describes her as “one of Britain’s leading businesswomen, an accredited life coach [and] decorated motivational speaker”, as well as an author and podcaster. She charges £725 for a package of three 60-minute life coaching sessions, or £1,450 to £3,500 for a full executive life coaching programme. She is currently writing a book depicting the “highs and lows” of life with Captain Tom that she says is days from completion.

Colin, 66, is a chartered accountant. He held a string of prominent roles as a finance director of Saatchi & Saatchi London and Mulberry, among others, and then as the group finance director of the house-building company Gladedale (now known as Avant Homes). His LinkedIn profile describes him as an “entrepreneur in the land and development sector” who is, perhaps ironically, “adept at working land opportunities through the planning system, particularly for residential development”.

Companies House records link him to dozens of active and dissolved businesses.

All of this came to light as The Captain Tom Foundation came under scrutiny. This looks like a cynical business ploy, one in which he had no involvement:

This week, it emerged that planners had ordered the demolition of an unauthorised building in the grounds of the Ingram-Moores’ £1.2 million home in Marston Moretaine, which they had shared with Captain Tom. Hannah had applied for planning permission for “The Captain Tom Building” in 2021. Its purpose was to be used “in connection with The Captain Tom Foundation and its charitable objectives” – primarily for Captain Tom memorabilia. But the building actually constructed on the land, which ended up containing a spa pool, was larger than the one for which permission had been granted. A retrospective planning application for it was rejected by Central Bedfordshire Council and a demolition notice issued.

The Foundation was set up in Captain Tom’s name in May 2020 to promote causes “close to his heart”. Its grant-making work is separate from the initial £38.9 million he raised, which funded thousands of projects and is not under any investigation. The Foundation’s independent trustees told The Sun newspaper they had been unaware of the use of Captain Tom’s name made in the planning applications by Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore. “Had they been aware of any applications, the independent trustees would not have authorised them,” the Foundation said.

If the episode leaves unanswered questions about why Captain Tom’s name was used for what appear to be purposes other than charitable endeavour, they are not the only ones. Other, perhaps greater, question marks have hung over the Foundation since last year, when the Charity Commission launched an inquiry into its finances.

It had first opened a case in March 2021 over the charity’s accounts, which showed it had bestowed £160,000 in charitable grants in its first year, while clocking up expenditure of £240,000 on management and fundraising. At the end of June 2022, the Commission announced it had “escalated its engagement” due to newly identified concerns about arrangements between the charity and a company linked to the Ingram-Moore family, as well as ongoing concerns about the trustees’ decision-making and the charity’s governance.

“The Commission is concerned that a failure to consider intellectual property and trademark issues when the charity was established provided Club Nook Limited, a private company controlled by Hannah Ingram-Moore and Colin Ingram-Moore, the opportunity to trademark variations of the name ‘Captain Tom’ without objection from the charity,” it said in a statement. “This may have generated significant profit for the company.”

Intellectual Property Office documents show that Club Nook Limited – which was incorporated in April 2020 – has trademarked the names Captain Tom, Sir Tom Moore and Captain Sir Tom for potential use in a vast array of products, ranging from greetings cards to drinks. Captain Sir Tom’s London Dry Gin is currently on sale for £35.95 from Otterbeck Distillery in Yorkshire. The Foundation receives £1 for every bottle sold.

Hannah told The Times last year that “Club Nook has not profited from branded merchandise/memorabilia [OR] been paid by the Foundation for use of its trademarks and that Club Nook’s revenues [its first-year accounts showed income of more than £809,000] have been generated by other activities”.

The Foundation’s accounts for 2020 to 2021 show that “reimbursement of costs of £16,097 were made to Club Nook Limited” that year and that payments of £37,942 were made to Maytrix Group Limited for costs including office rental (£4,500) and third-party consultancy (£27,205). “These costs were initially funded by Maytrix Group Limited on behalf of the charitable company, and reimbursed when sufficient funds were available,” the accounts state. The third-party consultancy paid more than £27,000 is not named. Fundraising management costs included “fundraising consultancy fees” of £126,424.

The inquiry is examining whether the Foundation’s trustees have been responsible for mismanagement and/or misconduct in the administration of the charity and whether, as a result, the charity has suffered any financial losses, including through any unauthorised private benefit to any of the current or previous trustees; whether they have adequately managed conflicts of interest, including with private companies connected to the Ingram-Moore family; and whether they have complied with and fulfilled their duties and responsibilities under charity law.

In July 2021, the regulator refused permission to employ Hannah as chief executive of the Foundation on a salary of £100,000, considering the proposed salary “neither reasonable nor justifiable”. The following month, it permitted the charity to appoint her as interim chief executive on a salary of £85,000 per year for a maximum of nine months while the trustees conducted an open recruitment process. A new CEO, Jack Gilbert, was appointed in June 2022.

The Foundation has stopped seeking funding from donors while it awaits the outcome of the inquiry.

On August 1, The Times reported that Jack Gilbert resigned in October 2022. No successor has been appointed.

On September 14, Laura Perrins, one of the founders of The Conservative Woman, posted ‘Captain Tom — all part of the great Covid con’.

It opens with this:

I TELL you what, that Captain Tom saga is a real humdinger. That Captain Tom debacle is a gift that keeps giving, unless you actually gave a gift to the Captain Tom Foundation, in which case I would say, more fool you and do you require some time in the Hannah Ingram-Moore family pool and spa complex to calm down? 

In fact, when I put Captain Tom in the Times search engine, this is what came up: 

‘Captain Tom’s daughter was paid £70k despite charity’s woes’;

‘Captain Tom’s daughter accused over awards fee’;

‘Captain Sir Tom Moore’s daughter challenges spa demolition order’;

‘Captain Tom’s daughter claimed partial credit for his award’

What a turnaround from the media. Now it suits them to reveal the Captain Tom saga for what it was – namely that he and you were used as a government propaganda tool. The tale is symbolic of the entire Covid regime, namely that it was a con and you have been had. 

The media hysteria, the government reaction, was not only a disastrous policy but a con. Instead of the media doing their job and examining some of the more outlandish claims made by the government, they not only went along with it, but they were enthusiastic government mouthpieces. A key plank of the Covid fear propaganda campaign was the ludicrous beatification of Captain Tom Moore, may he rest in peace …

Laura Perrins says that only author and broadcaster James Delingpole was willing to say the same back in February 2021, the month that Sir Tom died. I would have quoted her, but some readers might object to the language used.

She continues:

I can tell you even I was worried about this piece, can I be doing with the push-back, I asked myself, and no one else in the media said the obvious yet the unsayable, that it is not even nonsense, but a dangerous media invention for the purposes of prolonging the ruinous lockdown.

James again: ‘… Captain Tom’s propaganda function was twofold. First, he helped promote the myth that the NHS is not merely our national treasure and the envy of the world but something so important that our economy, our freedoms, even our lives should be sacrificed to guarantee its survival. Second, his service record (no ex-soldier retains the rank of ‘Captain’, by the way) invited dishonest comparisons with the Second World War, heavy-hinting that Covid-19 is our Hitler, our Mussolini, our Tojo, which if we all pull together we can beat. Both are massive lies.’ Well said, James.

Three years in, the media are running a kind of, oh well that was then and this is now, we are back to doing our jobs. A columnist in the Times explains the propaganda war that was Captain Tom as follows: ‘This small, sweet story swiftly spiralled into one of national importance. This is partly because it happened in the early days of lockdown, when the national mood was completely bananas.’ 

Just pause there one moment: this is all a bit too passive. The reason why it ‘spiralled’ was because the media did the spiralling. The reason why the ‘national mood was completely bananas’ was because the entire mainstream media whipped everyone up into a state of fear, where most people did indeed go bananas. These things didn’t just happen by accident. It was intended to be that way. It was designed that way. 

Although I am not sure that it really was ‘designed that way’, as Laura Perrins posits, those giving the daily coronavirus briefings did urge us to buy daily newspapers. That stopped once we were let out of our homes again in July 2020, but maybe Matt Hancock, then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, thought it was a good idea to get print media on side. Those who did buy newspapers during that period said that they carried a lot of NHS coronavirus adverts. Interesting.

As I write, the NHS waiting lists have gone up to 7.6 million. How is it that ‘the envy of the world’ cannot get a grip on waiting lists after the second — or was it the third — lockdown in England ended in July 2021? And how is it that, despite this spiralling total, doctors and nurses feel free to go on strike? They seem to prefer politicking to patient care.

The only person I feel sorry for here is Sir Tom. I doubt he would have wanted his memory to be tainted like this. All being well, he is at peace with the Lord.

I will have another coronavirus follow-up story tomorrow.