NHS fundraiser by 99-year-old veteran Tom Moore tops £5 million

A 99-year-old army veteran’s NHS charity fundraiser has now topped the £5m mark as donations continue to flood in.

Captain Tom Moore had set out to raise £1000 by walking 100 laps of his garden by Thursday.

However, the appeal was taken to new heights as over a quarter of a million people from across the world donated.

At one point, staff on donation platform JustGiving had to ensure the site did not crash with 90,000 people viewing his page.

I’m Captain Tom Moore, war veteran, 99 years of age (soon to be 100) and I’m walking for the NHS to raise money for our heroes.https://t.co/M1dkvoV3kE

— Captain Tom Moore (@captaintommoore) April 10, 2020

The Bedfordshire veteran says he’ll carry on walking, hoping to complete an additional 100 laps.

Mr Moore, who began raising funds to thank the NHS staff who helped him with treatment for cancer and a broken hip, turns 100 on April 30.

"You've done it! People have donated over £5m!"

99-year-old army veteran Captain Tom Moore says it is "completely out of this world" after finding out he has raised over £5m for NHS charitieshttps://t.co/gRReTgJbJE pic.twitter.com/BB3g0ka8lW

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) April 15, 2020

“I think [the total] is absolutely enormous,” Mr Moore told the BBC. “At no time when we started off with this exercise did we anticipate we’d get anything near that sort of money.

“It just shows that people have such high regard for matters of our National Health Service and it’s really amazing that people have paid so much money.”

His daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, told the BBC that the amount raised was “beyond our wildest expectations”.

When the JustGiving page went live last week they thought their £1,000 target was a “real stretch”, she said.

“No words can express our gratitude to the British public for getting behind Tom, for making this into a heartfelt story,” she added.

“He’s a stoic Yorkshireman, he’s an unruffled straight-down-the-line kind of person and has embraced this adventure as the next stage of his life.

“I believe that life is all about purpose, we all need purpose, and, whilst he’s had a life full of purpose, he did fall and break his hip and became much less independent than he had been for the preceding 98 years, and what you have done, the British public, and everyone who’s supported him, is giving him his next purpose.

“He is articulate, he’s alive, he’s doing this and I think he’ll do this until everyone says ‘Stop, don’t do it any more’.”

Originally from Keighley in West Yorkshire, Mr Moore trained as a civil engineer before enlisting in the Army for the Second World War, rising to captain and serving in India and Burma.