TOM’S GARDEN LEAVE
A frail old war veteran who loved the NHS, Captain Tom Moore has died aged 100. And one year ago, this wouldn’t have been enough for a DDP obit, let alone full on TV coverage. However in the last year, there’s been a little thing called covid. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it.
But anyhow, one plot twist was that as the NHS struggled to save the lives of covid sufferers across the UK… months earlier, they had saved the life of a frail old man who’d had a fall and a head injury. Tom Moore survived that, so when covid hit, he decided to thank the NHS by walking around his garden in a socially distanced manner and raise some charity money for their NHS Charities Together group. Aiming to raise a grand, he was turned into the biggest OAP national spectacle since They Shoot Horses Don’t They, and raised 30 million.
Soon after, a knighthood, a dreadful UK number one record, universal acclaim, a book deal, a documentary, and being patronised by Boris Johnson followed, with it not being very clear how much or little Tom actually took in of all of this. He became Sir Thomas Moore, which historically was a bit ominous for his longevity. Even Captain Tom masks and whisky wound up being sold for a man best known weeks earlier for a short run as a Blankety Blank contestant in the 1980s. And then he died as he lived in the spotlight…by catching covid.
In the future they’ll be teaching the Captain Tom Moore hysteria to schoolkids and telling them what it said about us as a nation, but for now, it’s hard to dislike the actual guy. He seemed a decent if frail sort. Unless…. He was quite old. He wasn’t Jack the Ripper, was he? Captain Tom made it onto 25 teams, frankly an underachievement for a chap most watchers expected to make the Drop 40 easily. Those who got 4 points include Brown Bananas, Deadwig, Much Ado About Snuffing (like it!), and Prophet’s Prophecy.
Captain Tom Moore
30 April 1920 – 2 February 2021
25 teams