April 4, 2025 • 38 mins
When Britain entered its first Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, many found comfort in evoking the British wartime spirit. A timely hero emerged - Captain Tom Moore, a WWII veteran who walked up and down his garden to raise money for frontline nurses. But when the fundraising switched to a new charity, did anyone think to check where was the money was going?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. An old man walked up and down his garden.
Then he walked up and down his garden again. The
next day, the old man walked up and down his garden.
(00:35):
This may not sound very interesting, but in April twenty twenty,
the old man walking up and down his garden was
big news in the UK. Day after day, the old
man was on all the newspaper front pages, the BBC's
and a camera crew to the garden to broadcast live
(00:56):
to the nation. As the old man shuffled carefully along,
gripping the handles of his walking frame, his shoulders hunched
smartly dressed in a shirt tie and blazer, army medals
pinned to his chest. In endless television interviews, the old
man shared his homespun optimistic philosophy. Tomorrow will be a
(01:21):
good day. Lord knows we needed some optimism. In April
twenty twenty, a month into the first COVID lockdown, what
else was on the news in Britain? Daily government press
conferences with their grim statistics about infections, hospital admissions and deaths.
(01:41):
The slogan on the lectern exhorted Brits to stay home
protect the NHS A yes, the NHS the National Health Service.
In windows of houses, people put up posters their children's
crew drawings of rainbows adorned with the words thank you NHS.
(02:05):
Once a week, at eight pm on Thursday, would all
open eyes our doors, stand on our doorsteps, bang spoons
on saucepans, and applaud the clap for carers. Then we'd
all go back inside to resume the business of staying home.
It was a strange time. Along came a man who
(02:28):
captured the zeitgeist. An old man walking up and down
his garden. Captain Tom Moore was ninety nine years old.
He was recovering from a fall that had fractured his hip.
He wanted to walk up and down his garden one
hundred times before his one hundredth birthday, a sponsored walk
(02:51):
to raise money for the NHS nurses who'd cared for him.
The British people took Captain Tom to their hearts. Thousands
of pounds rolled in for Captain Tom's sponsored walk, then millions,
then tens of millions. It was the good story of
the lockdown. I mentioned that this story started in a
(03:15):
strange time, but as the world got back to normal,
the story itself just got stranger. It tells us something
about our own impulse to give to good causes, and
it ends in disgrace with a wrecking crew in the
old man's garden. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to
(03:39):
cautionary tales. Tom Moore's family had his one hundredth birthday
(04:06):
party all planned out, roaster Hog and hire a singer
to perform hits from Tom's youth, like the Vera Lynn
classic We'll Meet Again. When that song came out in
nineteen thirty nine, Tom was nineteen years old. Young men
(04:26):
were going to fight in the Second World War, and
Vera Lynn gave them the words for their goodbyes to
their families. We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when,
but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. Tom
served for six years in the British Army, rising to
(04:50):
the rank of captain. He built a career in sales
and management, raised two daughters, retired and nursed his wife
through dementia. After his wife died, Tom moved in with
his younger daughter, Hannah, her husband, and their two children.
Hannah Ingram Moore is one of Britain's leading business women.
(05:14):
As she says on her website, which offers her services
as a brand marketing coach and acclaimed business strategist. The
family lived in a big house in a village in Bedfordshire,
an hour north of London. The move gave Tom a purpose,
As Hannah later explained to a journalist, it started to
(05:34):
feel invisible in old age. People look through me, he complained.
Even in his nineties, he could still make himself useful
In the ingram Moore's big house. Tom fed the dogs,
mowed the lawn, tinkered in the workshop, and cooked roast dinners.
One day, unloading the dishwasher, he tripped. I got tangled
(05:58):
up on my own feet, he recalled. He hit his head,
fractured his hip and punctured his lung. From his bedside,
Hannah called her sister, you'd better come. He's not going
to make it, but he did. After weeks in hospital,
Tom was well enough to go back home and determined
(06:21):
to get back on his feet again. He ordered a
treadmill so he could keep up his physio exercises. During winter,
the family started to plan his one hundredth birthday party
for the end of April. Not many heroes of the
Second World War made it to that age. Maybe the
local newspaper would like to print his picture. Hannah drafted
(06:42):
a press release, but then came COVID nobody would be
holding any parties in April. As the weather improved, Tom
moved his physio regime into the garden, walking up and
down with the aid of his walking frame. Hannah's husband
(07:02):
suggested a challenge. Could you do one hundred laps of
the garden to celebrate your one hundredth birthday. I'll give
a pounder lap to the charity of your choice. Fair enough,
said Tom. He chose NHS Charities Together, an organization that
supports frontline healthcare workers, like the ones who'd nursed him
(07:26):
back to health after his fall. The children took a
video of Tom walking with his frame and sent it
to friends and family. Hannah set up a page on
the website just giving dot com. She set a target
of one thousand pounds about twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
(07:46):
Then she remembered the draft press release about the party
that wasn't going to happen. She rewrote it, sharing details
of Tom's sponsored walk instead, and sent it off to
the local media. You can never be sure what's going
to go viral. Lots of people set themselves personal challenges
(08:11):
and ask for pledges to charity to motivate them to
see that challenge through. The vast majority hold no interest
at all for anyone beyond friends and family. Why did
Captain Tom make headlines? One answer comes from metaphor, the
language we choose to talk about events. When the COVID
(08:34):
pandemic came along, For example, some used the metaphor of
a natural disaster, a tsunami of illness approaching our shores.
Some used metaphors from sport. We had to think of
Lockdown as a marathon, not a sprint. But the most
common metaphor war. COVID was an attacker, an enemy that
(08:58):
must be fought. The choice of metaphor matters. In times
of war. Governments can impose authoritarian measures that we'd never
normally let them get away with. People can be asked
to make sacrifices for the common good. In a broadcast
to the nation early in the first Lockdown, the Queen
(09:20):
herself ninety three years old, asked Britons for those sacrifices.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I hope in the years to come everyone will be
able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge,
and those who come after us will say the Britons
of this generation were as strong as.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Any, as strong as any. The Queen was asking us
to compare ourselves to the strongest generation, the one that
defeated Hitler. In case that wasn't clear enough.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
It reminds me of the very first broadcast I made
in nineteen forty.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
The Queen ended her message to the nation by asking
us to endure the loneliness of lockdown and have faith
that better times lay ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
We will be with our friends again. We will be
with our families again. We will meet again.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when. The
virus was the Nazis, the pandemic was the Second World War.
Enduring the lockdown was like surviving the blitz. Then into
the national consciousness shuffled Captain Tom. Here was a man
(10:39):
who'd served his nation in the Second World War, a
living link to that spirit of collective sacrifice that had
got us through the war and would get us through
the lockdown. Determinedly plodding up and down his garden raising
money in aid of frontline NHS workers, here was a
man who personified the very best of British, selfless, stoical, steadfast.
(11:06):
With hindsight, you can see why the name latched on
to Captain Tom. You couldn't have come up with a
better symbol of British lockdown spirit if you had tried.
But when Hannah ingram Moore pressed send on her email
to the local press, she could hardly have imagined the
(11:26):
perfect storm she was about to unleash. Cautionary tales will
be back in a moment. Hannah ingram Moore's press release
(11:51):
leads to an interview on a local radio station. Donations
on just giving dot Com pass the one thousand pounds target.
She gets a call from a local television station. What
might be a realistic new target, Hannah wonders. The local
TV people are skeptical. It's a lovely story, they say,
(12:14):
but don't get your hopes too high. The economy is
ground to a halt with a lockdown. Nobody's in the
mood to spend money at the moment. The piece on
local television catches the attention of national television. The BBC
want to interview Tom live on their breakfast show. Hannah
(12:34):
and the family scramble to figure out the technology. They
put an old music stand in front of Tom's favorite
chair and secure Hannah's phone to it with blue tag.
Tom's a bit deaf and the phone speaker isn't very loud,
so Hannah perches on a chair next to him to
repeat what the BBC presenters say.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So, how are you going to what would you say
to the nation in order to help us all to
keep calm.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
And carrying that remember tomorrow is a good day. Tomorrow
may be fine, everything better than today.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Donations on Captain Tom's just Giving page flash past five thousand,
then ten thousand, one hundred thousand. The broadcaster Peers Morgan
invites Tom and Hannah onto his morning show on ITV.
By now the totals closing in on half a million,
and Morgan says he's going to help.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Here's what I'm going to do, Tom, I'm going to
put ten thousand pounds of my own money into your
fundraising today and I hope that encourages everyone watching at
home to do the same, to be as generous as
they can.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Two days later, Tom's in the middle of yet another
interview on the BBC when the presenter cuts in with
breaking news. Donations have just passed five million, with no
signs of stopping. In two thousand and seven, the economists
(14:16):
Dean Carlin and Daniel Wood worked with the charity Freedom
from Hunger to conduct an experiment. They wanted to explore
a simple question, why do people donate to charity? There's
an obvious answer, we want to do good in the world,
obvious but often wrong. The researchers tested the impact of
(14:38):
two kinds of direct male appeal. Both male shots started
with a photo of a sad looking woman and some
heartrending text Sebastiana has known nothing but abject poverty her
entire life. One group of donors got a male shot
that went on to explain how caring people like you
(15:02):
had helped Sebastiana to turn her life around. Her young
son Aurelio, runs up to hug her. She says, I
do whatever I can for my children. The other group's
mail shot instead talked about how rigorous scientific methodologies attested
(15:23):
to the cost effectiveness of the charity's intervention. The result
a few larger donors gave more when they received the
text about rigorous scientific methodologies, but most smaller donors gave less.
They weren't moved to donate by evidence that their donation
(15:45):
would be maximally cost effective. They were moved by the
thought of a young boy hugging his mum. They gave
not to do good, but to feel good. Economists call
it the warm glow effect, and it surely explains why
BRIT's in the pandemic through so much money that Captain
(16:07):
Tom's fundraising appeal. Not many will have read up on
the detail of how NHS charities together propose to use
their donation and carefully weighed up against alternative potential recipients
of their generosity. No, they wanted to see the look
on the old man's face as a journalist tells him
the total has blasted past another milestone. Captain Tom's fundraising
(16:34):
made Britain feel good about itself in a difficult time.
You've got a warm glow from being part of it.
At the ingram Moor's House lockdown, life has gone crazy.
Tom is doing dozens of interviews a day. The local
(16:54):
post office is groaning under the weight of hundreds of
thousands of cards to congratulate Tom on his one hundredth birthday.
Far too many cards for the family to cope with.
Volunteers at the local school put them on too display.
Soon they've taken over the whole school hall. Satellite broadcast
(17:15):
vans descend on the village, drones buzz over the ingram
Maor's garden, camera's poke through the hedge. It's overwhelming, intrusive, exhausting,
but as long as the money keeps rolling in for charity,
Tom and his family decide they can't possibly stop. When
(17:38):
the day arrives for Tom to complete his one hundredth lap,
Tom's old Army regiment sends soldiers to line up in
his garden in a guard of honor. Socially distanced, of course,
The BBC broadcasts the event live to the nation with
a reverential commentary as Tom carefully pushes his walking frame
(18:02):
towards the camera.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And here he comes. Captain Tom Moore approach his one
hundredth birthday, one hundred laps of his garden during lockdown,
all of the money going to NHS charity is a
guard of honor from the first Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment
inches Togo and there he is.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Congratulations. The moment might have seemed just a little bit absurd,
all this pomp and ceremony for an old man walking
up and down his garden. But it was touching, nonetheless,
and it wasn't over yet. Tom had completed his laps
with a couple of weeks to spare before his birthday.
(18:46):
The singer and Broadway star Michael Ball got in touch.
He wanted to release a song with Tom, a cover
of You'll Never Walk Alone When You Walk. Tom recorded
his part from his favorite armchair, Michael Ball from his
home studio. The screen split into dozens of zoom call
(19:16):
boxes filled with nurses from the NHS Voices of Care Choir.
The song went straight to number one. All proceeds went
to NHS charities together. When the appeal on JustGiving dot
com came to a close on the last day of
April Tom's one hundredth birthday, he'd raised an astonishing thirty
(19:40):
eight point nine million pounds for NHS frontline workers. That's
about fifty million dollars. The Royal Air Force celebrated by
flying two wartime planes, a hurricane and a spitfire over
Tom's garden. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Tom
(20:01):
would be knighted for his services to fundraising, becoming Captain
Sir Tom. The Whirlwind appeal was over. What next? Tom could,
of course, have chosen to withdraw from the public eye
and live out his days in the privacy he had
(20:23):
enjoyed until a few short weeks ago. But he was
now a famous, much loved figure. Captain Tom had become
a powerful brand. There must be opportunities to use his
public profile to do even more good. The family decided
a new charity should be set up, the Captain Tom Foundation.
(20:46):
It would raise money and make grants to causes close
to Tom's heart. The family also set up a new
company and trademark Captain Tom's name. The charity's website linked
to and looked very much like an online store from
which you could buy official Captain Tom t shirts a
(21:06):
Captain Tom Rose or Captain Tom Jin that would give
you a warm glow twice over from the name on
the label and the booze in the bottle. If you
clicked through to buy something from the online store, the
proceeds would go to the Captain Tom Foundation. Right The
(21:27):
online store also promoted Captain Tom's memoir, hastily commissioned by
a publishing company, entitled Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day.
In the prologue, Tom wrote astonishingly at my age with
the offer to write this memoir. I've also been given
the chance to raise even more money for the charitable
(21:49):
foundation now established in my name. That seemed pretty clear
by the book, and the money would go towards the
charitable foundation, or some of the money at least, wouldn't it.
Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. In December
(22:18):
twenty twenty, the UK had just emerged from a second lockdown,
and people briefly dared to hope for a festive Christmas,
But as the nights grew darker, the virus started spreading again,
and quickly, hesitant to impose yet another strict lockdown, the
(22:39):
government tried a touch of social pressure, asking people to
keep their celebrations short, small and local. Limit who you meet.
Do you really have to travel? Just because it's legal
to do something doesn't mean it's sensible. The ingram Moor family, meanwhile,
(22:59):
had jetted off to Barbados courtesy of free flights from
British airways. As the mood back in the UK became grimmer,
the Captain Tom Twitter account tweeted out a photo of
Tom Hannah, her husband, and their two children enjoying a
(23:19):
beautiful family day in the Barbados Sunshine, it said, followed
by a sunshine emoji and hashtag tomorrow will be a
good day. The response on Twitter was mixed. Enjoy every moment,
said one user, read the room advised another, I've omitted
(23:42):
the swear words. The Captain Tom brand took a bit
of a dent. Some people started to mutter, are the
family really in this for the purest of motives? The
following month, January twenty twenty one, Britain entered its third
(24:04):
national lockdown. Tom himself caught COVID and went into hospital.
Well wishes flooded in. The singer Michael Ball, for instance,
tweeted love and prayers for Moore and his lovely family.
Stay strong, sir, But this time Tom didn't make it.
(24:25):
He died at the start of February. Amid the tributes,
some people on Twitter said unkind things about the Barbados jolly.
The broadcaster Peers Morgan left to the defense of the
ingram More family. He had spoken to Hannah. They had
been deeply hurt by the online trolling. Morgan said it
(24:48):
was despicable. It should also have been a warning Captain
Tom was dead. But the Captain Tom Foundation lived on
with a real chance to do good in the world,
and that would mean that the Captain Tom brand would
need to be looked after. But if anyone was going
(25:10):
to understand the importance of managing public perceptions, it would
be a brand marketing coach. Lucky then that this was
precisely Hannah's area of expertise. By law, charities and companies
must publish their accounts once a year. The first year
of the Captain Tom Foundation's accounts showed it had raised
(25:33):
over a million pounds. It had given out some grants
to good causes, and spent a larger amount on support costs,
including tens of thousands of pounds paid to companies controlled
by the Ingram War family. But those were costs incurred
in getting the charity up and running. It was fair
(25:53):
enough that they'd be reimbursed. As for the company set
up to own the Captain Tom trademarks, the accounts showed
income of over eight hundred thousand pounds about a million dollars.
Where exactly had all that money come from? A journalist
emailed Hannah to ask. She didn't reply. The muttering grew louder.
(26:20):
Journalists asked more questions that official Captain Tom Limited Edition
gin for example. Exactly how much of the purchase price
went to the Captain Tom Foundation, Well, some of it,
but how much the gin was quietly pulled from sale.
(26:42):
Hannah began working as the interim CEO of the Captain
Tom Foundation. She asked for a salary of one hundred
and fifty thousand pounds a year, but the Charity Commission,
which regulates charities in England, said that was too much
for the CEO of a new small foundation. Eighty five
(27:04):
thousand pounds should be plenty. That's still more than one
hundred thousand dollars and nearly three times the average wage
in the UK. Still a bit disappointing. Not to worry, though,
There were other ways to make money. For example, Hannah
made a deal to provide ambassador services for a media
(27:26):
company's charity awards using Captain Tom's name. It was later
revealed the company paid twenty thousand pounds for these services,
but just two thousand of that went to the Captain
Tom Foundation. Eighteen thousand went to Hannah ingram Moore. Charities
(27:50):
by law must have independent trustees who act in the
charity's best interests. Both Hannah and her husband served for
a time among the trustees for the Captain Tom Foundation.
But were the foundation's trustees doing a good enough job?
The charity Commission started to wander They set up an inquiry. Meanwhile,
(28:14):
Hannah and her husband submitted a planning application to put
up a new building in the garden of their big house.
In English villages, you can't just build anything you like
on land you own. Development is strictly controlled by the
local government. The ingram Moors applied for permission to build
a Captain Tom Foundation building. It would be used for
(28:38):
charitable purposes. How could the local bureaucrats refuse? It's a
curious thing though. When the building actually went up, neighbors
noticed it was somewhat bigger than the plans for which
permission had been given. Also, it contained a luxury spa pool.
How exactly was a spapool going to be used for
(29:01):
charitable purposes? Well, it had the opportunity to offer rehabilitation
sessions for elderly people in the area on a once
or twice per week basis, said the Ingram Mares as
they appealed to the local authority to grant them retrospective
planning permission for the building. They'd actually built. As the
(29:25):
negative news stories piled up in twenty twenty three, Hannah
and her husband decided they should do an interview. They
turned to the broadcaster Piers Morgan. It was his donation
that had kickstarted the initial fundraising drive. In the first lockdown.
He had defended them staunchly against the online trolls after
Tom's death, But when they appeared on Piers Morgan uncensored,
(29:50):
they soon discovered that Morgan wasn't going to pull his punches.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
It's very hard to argue that you need a spa
pool to pay tribute to your father.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Morgan turned to the mysterious question of the eight hundred
thousand pounds. Where exactly had that come from? The Ingram
Moors tried to be vague, Morgan kept pushing. This is
a really unfair line of questioning, said Hannah. She demanded
that the cameras be turned off. When the cameras came
(30:22):
back on again, Morgan had evidently persuaded them to answer.
Most of the money had come from the book deal.
Tom's autobiography Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day have become
a best seller, But shouldn't some of that money have
gone to the charity, asked Morgan, No, said Hannah. It
was my father's book. He wrote it. He was very
(30:45):
clear about that. The regulator, the Charity Commission, published its
investigation report in twenty twenty four. Among other things, they
considered the question of Tom's book. Remember what he had
written in the prologue with the offer to write this memoir,
I've also been given the chance to raise even more
(31:08):
money for the charity foundation now established in my name.
Emails from the time showed that the publishers expected some
cash to go to the charity, and there was a
press release too, published in support of the Captain Tom Foundation.
The ingram More's argued that publication of Tom's autobiography did
(31:28):
support the foundation in the sense that it was prominently
mentioned in news coverage of the book's launch that amounted
to thousands of pounds worth of free advertising, promotion and
media space. The Charity Commission didn't buy it, their report says.
The Inquiry formerly wrote to mister and Missus ingram Moore
(31:50):
to provide them with an opportunity to rectify matters by
making a donation to the charity. They declined to do so.
The Inquiry looked at the Gin and the SPA and
the deal with the media company. It found that there
had been repeated instances a blurring of boundaries between private
(32:11):
and charitable interests, and repeated instances of misconduct and all
mismanagement on the part of Hannah and her husband. The
Ingram wars had damaged public trust and confidence in charities generally.
The broadcaster Piers Morgan tweeted his response to the report shameful.
(32:35):
The singer Michael Ball recalled how incredibly proud he had
been of his duet with Captain Tom and added to
see it twisted. Really, it's a real shame. It's easy
to criticize Hannah Ingram. More too easy. I want to
(32:56):
suggest another villain of this story, You and me and
everyone who's ever donated to a charity without pausing to
ask what evidence exists that the charity is effective and
well run. Just think back to April twenty twenty, when
(33:17):
the British public were pledging millions upon millions of pounds
inspired by the sight of an elderly veteran hobbling up
and down his own garden. What did most of us
know about how the network of NHS charities would use
the money, not much, and yet we gave anyway because
(33:40):
giving felt good. No harm done, you might say, in
this case, the charities probably used the money well, but
the problem is the culture it creates. We give money
to get a warm glow and don't give much thought
to how the money will be spent. Later, when the
fundraising effort moved to the brand new Captain Tom Foundation,
(34:04):
what did we know about how this foundation would be run? Nothing?
Yet some people gave anyway because giving felt good. In
his book Doing Good Better, the philosopher Will McCaskill points
out that the charity world often lacks effective feedback mechanisms.
(34:27):
Invest in a bad company and you lose money, But
give money to a bad charity and you probably won't
hear about its failings, which may explain why Hannah ingram
Moore didn't see a problem with her plans bad charities
CRUs on goodwill all the time. That said, there's not
(34:47):
usually as much goodwill as there was for Captain Tom,
and charities aren't usually quite as bad as the Captain
Tom Foundation was. We can blame Hannah ingram Moore, of course,
for giving in to the temptation to blur the boundaries
between private and charitable interests. But if donors routine did
(35:09):
as much due diligence on charities as investors do on companies,
that temptation might never have existed. The Captain Tom Foundation
shut up shop. The Charity Commission disqualified Hannah and her
husband from running or being a trustee of any charity.
(35:30):
But the Ingram Wars had one last ignominy to suffer.
They'd appealed to the local authority for retrospective planning permission
for their spa building. The planners said no, it would
have to be demolished. The media once again converged on
(35:51):
the Ingram Moore's house with their cameras, this time to
film an excavator knocking down a spa in the garden
where Tom Moore had once inspired a nation. Now they
are pile of rubble. Sometimes the metaphors write themselves. For
(36:30):
a full list of our sources, see the show notes
at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me
Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilly.
It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound
(36:51):
design and original music are the work of the Pascal Wise.
Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio.
Thanks also to Barry Wise, who provided the pieces on
piano for this episode. Bender Daphaffrey edited the scripts. The
show features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford,
(37:13):
Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, Massaamn Roe, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright.
The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work
of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohene, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody,
Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is
a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios
(37:36):
in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show,
please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes
a difference to us and if you want to hear
the show, add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on
the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot Fm,
slash plus, m
Pushkin. An old man walked up and down his garden.
Then he walked up and down his garden again. The
next day, the old man walked up and down his garden.
(00:35):
This may not sound very interesting, but in April twenty twenty,
the old man walking up and down his garden was
big news in the UK. Day after day, the old
man was on all the newspaper front pages, the BBC's
and a camera crew to the garden to broadcast live
(00:56):
to the nation. As the old man shuffled carefully along,
gripping the handles of his walking frame, his shoulders hunched
smartly dressed in a shirt tie and blazer, army medals
pinned to his chest. In endless television interviews, the old
man shared his homespun optimistic philosophy. Tomorrow will be a
(01:21):
good day. Lord knows we needed some optimism. In April
twenty twenty, a month into the first COVID lockdown, what
else was on the news in Britain? Daily government press
conferences with their grim statistics about infections, hospital admissions and deaths.
(01:41):
The slogan on the lectern exhorted Brits to stay home
protect the NHS A yes, the NHS the National Health Service.
In windows of houses, people put up posters their children's
crew drawings of rainbows adorned with the words thank you NHS.
(02:05):
Once a week, at eight pm on Thursday, would all
open eyes our doors, stand on our doorsteps, bang spoons
on saucepans, and applaud the clap for carers. Then we'd
all go back inside to resume the business of staying home.
It was a strange time. Along came a man who
(02:28):
captured the zeitgeist. An old man walking up and down
his garden. Captain Tom Moore was ninety nine years old.
He was recovering from a fall that had fractured his hip.
He wanted to walk up and down his garden one
hundred times before his one hundredth birthday, a sponsored walk
(02:51):
to raise money for the NHS nurses who'd cared for him.
The British people took Captain Tom to their hearts. Thousands
of pounds rolled in for Captain Tom's sponsored walk, then millions,
then tens of millions. It was the good story of
the lockdown. I mentioned that this story started in a
(03:15):
strange time, but as the world got back to normal,
the story itself just got stranger. It tells us something
about our own impulse to give to good causes, and
it ends in disgrace with a wrecking crew in the
old man's garden. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to
(03:39):
cautionary tales. Tom Moore's family had his one hundredth birthday
(04:06):
party all planned out, roaster Hog and hire a singer
to perform hits from Tom's youth, like the Vera Lynn
classic We'll Meet Again. When that song came out in
nineteen thirty nine, Tom was nineteen years old. Young men
(04:26):
were going to fight in the Second World War, and
Vera Lynn gave them the words for their goodbyes to
their families. We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when,
but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. Tom
served for six years in the British Army, rising to
(04:50):
the rank of captain. He built a career in sales
and management, raised two daughters, retired and nursed his wife
through dementia. After his wife died, Tom moved in with
his younger daughter, Hannah, her husband, and their two children.
Hannah Ingram Moore is one of Britain's leading business women.
(05:14):
As she says on her website, which offers her services
as a brand marketing coach and acclaimed business strategist. The
family lived in a big house in a village in Bedfordshire,
an hour north of London. The move gave Tom a purpose,
As Hannah later explained to a journalist, it started to
(05:34):
feel invisible in old age. People look through me, he complained.
Even in his nineties, he could still make himself useful
In the ingram Moore's big house. Tom fed the dogs,
mowed the lawn, tinkered in the workshop, and cooked roast dinners.
One day, unloading the dishwasher, he tripped. I got tangled
(05:58):
up on my own feet, he recalled. He hit his head,
fractured his hip and punctured his lung. From his bedside,
Hannah called her sister, you'd better come. He's not going
to make it, but he did. After weeks in hospital,
Tom was well enough to go back home and determined
(06:21):
to get back on his feet again. He ordered a
treadmill so he could keep up his physio exercises. During winter,
the family started to plan his one hundredth birthday party
for the end of April. Not many heroes of the
Second World War made it to that age. Maybe the
local newspaper would like to print his picture. Hannah drafted
(06:42):
a press release, but then came COVID nobody would be
holding any parties in April. As the weather improved, Tom
moved his physio regime into the garden, walking up and
down with the aid of his walking frame. Hannah's husband
(07:02):
suggested a challenge. Could you do one hundred laps of
the garden to celebrate your one hundredth birthday. I'll give
a pounder lap to the charity of your choice. Fair enough,
said Tom. He chose NHS Charities Together, an organization that
supports frontline healthcare workers, like the ones who'd nursed him
(07:26):
back to health after his fall. The children took a
video of Tom walking with his frame and sent it
to friends and family. Hannah set up a page on
the website just giving dot com. She set a target
of one thousand pounds about twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
(07:46):
Then she remembered the draft press release about the party
that wasn't going to happen. She rewrote it, sharing details
of Tom's sponsored walk instead, and sent it off to
the local media. You can never be sure what's going
to go viral. Lots of people set themselves personal challenges
(08:11):
and ask for pledges to charity to motivate them to
see that challenge through. The vast majority hold no interest
at all for anyone beyond friends and family. Why did
Captain Tom make headlines? One answer comes from metaphor, the
language we choose to talk about events. When the COVID
(08:34):
pandemic came along, For example, some used the metaphor of
a natural disaster, a tsunami of illness approaching our shores.
Some used metaphors from sport. We had to think of
Lockdown as a marathon, not a sprint. But the most
common metaphor war. COVID was an attacker, an enemy that
(08:58):
must be fought. The choice of metaphor matters. In times
of war. Governments can impose authoritarian measures that we'd never
normally let them get away with. People can be asked
to make sacrifices for the common good. In a broadcast
to the nation early in the first Lockdown, the Queen
(09:20):
herself ninety three years old, asked Britons for those sacrifices.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I hope in the years to come everyone will be
able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge,
and those who come after us will say the Britons
of this generation were as strong as.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Any, as strong as any. The Queen was asking us
to compare ourselves to the strongest generation, the one that
defeated Hitler. In case that wasn't clear enough.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
It reminds me of the very first broadcast I made
in nineteen forty.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
The Queen ended her message to the nation by asking
us to endure the loneliness of lockdown and have faith
that better times lay ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
We will be with our friends again. We will be
with our families again. We will meet again.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when. The
virus was the Nazis, the pandemic was the Second World War.
Enduring the lockdown was like surviving the blitz. Then into
the national consciousness shuffled Captain Tom. Here was a man
(10:39):
who'd served his nation in the Second World War, a
living link to that spirit of collective sacrifice that had
got us through the war and would get us through
the lockdown. Determinedly plodding up and down his garden raising
money in aid of frontline NHS workers, here was a
man who personified the very best of British, selfless, stoical, steadfast.
(11:06):
With hindsight, you can see why the name latched on
to Captain Tom. You couldn't have come up with a
better symbol of British lockdown spirit if you had tried.
But when Hannah ingram Moore pressed send on her email
to the local press, she could hardly have imagined the
(11:26):
perfect storm she was about to unleash. Cautionary tales will
be back in a moment. Hannah ingram Moore's press release
(11:51):
leads to an interview on a local radio station. Donations
on just giving dot Com pass the one thousand pounds target.
She gets a call from a local television station. What
might be a realistic new target, Hannah wonders. The local
TV people are skeptical. It's a lovely story, they say,
(12:14):
but don't get your hopes too high. The economy is
ground to a halt with a lockdown. Nobody's in the
mood to spend money at the moment. The piece on
local television catches the attention of national television. The BBC
want to interview Tom live on their breakfast show. Hannah
(12:34):
and the family scramble to figure out the technology. They
put an old music stand in front of Tom's favorite
chair and secure Hannah's phone to it with blue tag.
Tom's a bit deaf and the phone speaker isn't very loud,
so Hannah perches on a chair next to him to
repeat what the BBC presenters say.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
So, how are you going to what would you say
to the nation in order to help us all to
keep calm.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
And carrying that remember tomorrow is a good day. Tomorrow
may be fine, everything better than today.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Donations on Captain Tom's just Giving page flash past five thousand,
then ten thousand, one hundred thousand. The broadcaster Peers Morgan
invites Tom and Hannah onto his morning show on ITV.
By now the totals closing in on half a million,
and Morgan says he's going to help.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Here's what I'm going to do, Tom, I'm going to
put ten thousand pounds of my own money into your
fundraising today and I hope that encourages everyone watching at
home to do the same, to be as generous as
they can.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Two days later, Tom's in the middle of yet another
interview on the BBC when the presenter cuts in with
breaking news. Donations have just passed five million, with no
signs of stopping. In two thousand and seven, the economists
(14:16):
Dean Carlin and Daniel Wood worked with the charity Freedom
from Hunger to conduct an experiment. They wanted to explore
a simple question, why do people donate to charity? There's
an obvious answer, we want to do good in the world,
obvious but often wrong. The researchers tested the impact of
(14:38):
two kinds of direct male appeal. Both male shots started
with a photo of a sad looking woman and some
heartrending text Sebastiana has known nothing but abject poverty her
entire life. One group of donors got a male shot
that went on to explain how caring people like you
(15:02):
had helped Sebastiana to turn her life around. Her young
son Aurelio, runs up to hug her. She says, I
do whatever I can for my children. The other group's
mail shot instead talked about how rigorous scientific methodologies attested
(15:23):
to the cost effectiveness of the charity's intervention. The result
a few larger donors gave more when they received the
text about rigorous scientific methodologies, but most smaller donors gave less.
They weren't moved to donate by evidence that their donation
(15:45):
would be maximally cost effective. They were moved by the
thought of a young boy hugging his mum. They gave
not to do good, but to feel good. Economists call
it the warm glow effect, and it surely explains why
BRIT's in the pandemic through so much money that Captain
(16:07):
Tom's fundraising appeal. Not many will have read up on
the detail of how NHS charities together propose to use
their donation and carefully weighed up against alternative potential recipients
of their generosity. No, they wanted to see the look
on the old man's face as a journalist tells him
the total has blasted past another milestone. Captain Tom's fundraising
(16:34):
made Britain feel good about itself in a difficult time.
You've got a warm glow from being part of it.
At the ingram Moor's House lockdown, life has gone crazy.
Tom is doing dozens of interviews a day. The local
(16:54):
post office is groaning under the weight of hundreds of
thousands of cards to congratulate Tom on his one hundredth birthday.
Far too many cards for the family to cope with.
Volunteers at the local school put them on too display.
Soon they've taken over the whole school hall. Satellite broadcast
(17:15):
vans descend on the village, drones buzz over the ingram
Maor's garden, camera's poke through the hedge. It's overwhelming, intrusive, exhausting,
but as long as the money keeps rolling in for charity,
Tom and his family decide they can't possibly stop. When
(17:38):
the day arrives for Tom to complete his one hundredth lap,
Tom's old Army regiment sends soldiers to line up in
his garden in a guard of honor. Socially distanced, of course,
The BBC broadcasts the event live to the nation with
a reverential commentary as Tom carefully pushes his walking frame
(18:02):
towards the camera.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
And here he comes. Captain Tom Moore approach his one
hundredth birthday, one hundred laps of his garden during lockdown,
all of the money going to NHS charity is a
guard of honor from the first Battalion the Yorkshire Regiment
inches Togo and there he is.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Congratulations. The moment might have seemed just a little bit absurd,
all this pomp and ceremony for an old man walking
up and down his garden. But it was touching, nonetheless,
and it wasn't over yet. Tom had completed his laps
with a couple of weeks to spare before his birthday.
(18:46):
The singer and Broadway star Michael Ball got in touch.
He wanted to release a song with Tom, a cover
of You'll Never Walk Alone When You Walk. Tom recorded
his part from his favorite armchair, Michael Ball from his
home studio. The screen split into dozens of zoom call
(19:16):
boxes filled with nurses from the NHS Voices of Care Choir.
The song went straight to number one. All proceeds went
to NHS charities together. When the appeal on JustGiving dot
com came to a close on the last day of
April Tom's one hundredth birthday, he'd raised an astonishing thirty
(19:40):
eight point nine million pounds for NHS frontline workers. That's
about fifty million dollars. The Royal Air Force celebrated by
flying two wartime planes, a hurricane and a spitfire over
Tom's garden. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Tom
(20:01):
would be knighted for his services to fundraising, becoming Captain
Sir Tom. The Whirlwind appeal was over. What next? Tom could,
of course, have chosen to withdraw from the public eye
and live out his days in the privacy he had
(20:23):
enjoyed until a few short weeks ago. But he was
now a famous, much loved figure. Captain Tom had become
a powerful brand. There must be opportunities to use his
public profile to do even more good. The family decided
a new charity should be set up, the Captain Tom Foundation.
(20:46):
It would raise money and make grants to causes close
to Tom's heart. The family also set up a new
company and trademark Captain Tom's name. The charity's website linked
to and looked very much like an online store from
which you could buy official Captain Tom t shirts a
(21:06):
Captain Tom Rose or Captain Tom Jin that would give
you a warm glow twice over from the name on
the label and the booze in the bottle. If you
clicked through to buy something from the online store, the
proceeds would go to the Captain Tom Foundation. Right The
(21:27):
online store also promoted Captain Tom's memoir, hastily commissioned by
a publishing company, entitled Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day.
In the prologue, Tom wrote astonishingly at my age with
the offer to write this memoir. I've also been given
the chance to raise even more money for the charitable
(21:49):
foundation now established in my name. That seemed pretty clear
by the book, and the money would go towards the
charitable foundation, or some of the money at least, wouldn't it.
Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. In December
(22:18):
twenty twenty, the UK had just emerged from a second lockdown,
and people briefly dared to hope for a festive Christmas,
But as the nights grew darker, the virus started spreading again,
and quickly, hesitant to impose yet another strict lockdown, the
(22:39):
government tried a touch of social pressure, asking people to
keep their celebrations short, small and local. Limit who you meet.
Do you really have to travel? Just because it's legal
to do something doesn't mean it's sensible. The ingram Moor family, meanwhile,
(22:59):
had jetted off to Barbados courtesy of free flights from
British airways. As the mood back in the UK became grimmer,
the Captain Tom Twitter account tweeted out a photo of
Tom Hannah, her husband, and their two children enjoying a
(23:19):
beautiful family day in the Barbados Sunshine, it said, followed
by a sunshine emoji and hashtag tomorrow will be a
good day. The response on Twitter was mixed. Enjoy every moment,
said one user, read the room advised another, I've omitted
(23:42):
the swear words. The Captain Tom brand took a bit
of a dent. Some people started to mutter, are the
family really in this for the purest of motives? The
following month, January twenty twenty one, Britain entered its third
(24:04):
national lockdown. Tom himself caught COVID and went into hospital.
Well wishes flooded in. The singer Michael Ball, for instance,
tweeted love and prayers for Moore and his lovely family.
Stay strong, sir, But this time Tom didn't make it.
(24:25):
He died at the start of February. Amid the tributes,
some people on Twitter said unkind things about the Barbados jolly.
The broadcaster Peers Morgan left to the defense of the
ingram More family. He had spoken to Hannah. They had
been deeply hurt by the online trolling. Morgan said it
(24:48):
was despicable. It should also have been a warning Captain
Tom was dead. But the Captain Tom Foundation lived on
with a real chance to do good in the world,
and that would mean that the Captain Tom brand would
need to be looked after. But if anyone was going
(25:10):
to understand the importance of managing public perceptions, it would
be a brand marketing coach. Lucky then that this was
precisely Hannah's area of expertise. By law, charities and companies
must publish their accounts once a year. The first year
of the Captain Tom Foundation's accounts showed it had raised
(25:33):
over a million pounds. It had given out some grants
to good causes, and spent a larger amount on support costs,
including tens of thousands of pounds paid to companies controlled
by the Ingram War family. But those were costs incurred
in getting the charity up and running. It was fair
(25:53):
enough that they'd be reimbursed. As for the company set
up to own the Captain Tom trademarks, the accounts showed
income of over eight hundred thousand pounds about a million dollars.
Where exactly had all that money come from? A journalist
emailed Hannah to ask. She didn't reply. The muttering grew louder.
(26:20):
Journalists asked more questions that official Captain Tom Limited Edition
gin for example. Exactly how much of the purchase price
went to the Captain Tom Foundation, Well, some of it,
but how much the gin was quietly pulled from sale.
(26:42):
Hannah began working as the interim CEO of the Captain
Tom Foundation. She asked for a salary of one hundred
and fifty thousand pounds a year, but the Charity Commission,
which regulates charities in England, said that was too much
for the CEO of a new small foundation. Eighty five
(27:04):
thousand pounds should be plenty. That's still more than one
hundred thousand dollars and nearly three times the average wage
in the UK. Still a bit disappointing. Not to worry, though,
There were other ways to make money. For example, Hannah
made a deal to provide ambassador services for a media
(27:26):
company's charity awards using Captain Tom's name. It was later
revealed the company paid twenty thousand pounds for these services,
but just two thousand of that went to the Captain
Tom Foundation. Eighteen thousand went to Hannah ingram Moore. Charities
(27:50):
by law must have independent trustees who act in the
charity's best interests. Both Hannah and her husband served for
a time among the trustees for the Captain Tom Foundation.
But were the foundation's trustees doing a good enough job?
The charity Commission started to wander They set up an inquiry. Meanwhile,
(28:14):
Hannah and her husband submitted a planning application to put
up a new building in the garden of their big house.
In English villages, you can't just build anything you like
on land you own. Development is strictly controlled by the
local government. The ingram Moors applied for permission to build
a Captain Tom Foundation building. It would be used for
(28:38):
charitable purposes. How could the local bureaucrats refuse? It's a
curious thing though. When the building actually went up, neighbors
noticed it was somewhat bigger than the plans for which
permission had been given. Also, it contained a luxury spa pool.
How exactly was a spapool going to be used for
(29:01):
charitable purposes? Well, it had the opportunity to offer rehabilitation
sessions for elderly people in the area on a once
or twice per week basis, said the Ingram Mares as
they appealed to the local authority to grant them retrospective
planning permission for the building. They'd actually built. As the
(29:25):
negative news stories piled up in twenty twenty three, Hannah
and her husband decided they should do an interview. They
turned to the broadcaster Piers Morgan. It was his donation
that had kickstarted the initial fundraising drive. In the first lockdown.
He had defended them staunchly against the online trolls after
Tom's death, But when they appeared on Piers Morgan uncensored,
(29:50):
they soon discovered that Morgan wasn't going to pull his punches.
Speaker 5 (29:55):
It's very hard to argue that you need a spa
pool to pay tribute to your father.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Morgan turned to the mysterious question of the eight hundred
thousand pounds. Where exactly had that come from? The Ingram
Moors tried to be vague, Morgan kept pushing. This is
a really unfair line of questioning, said Hannah. She demanded
that the cameras be turned off. When the cameras came
(30:22):
back on again, Morgan had evidently persuaded them to answer.
Most of the money had come from the book deal.
Tom's autobiography Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day have become
a best seller, But shouldn't some of that money have
gone to the charity, asked Morgan, No, said Hannah. It
was my father's book. He wrote it. He was very
(30:45):
clear about that. The regulator, the Charity Commission, published its
investigation report in twenty twenty four. Among other things, they
considered the question of Tom's book. Remember what he had
written in the prologue with the offer to write this memoir,
I've also been given the chance to raise even more
(31:08):
money for the charity foundation now established in my name.
Emails from the time showed that the publishers expected some
cash to go to the charity, and there was a
press release too, published in support of the Captain Tom Foundation.
The ingram More's argued that publication of Tom's autobiography did
(31:28):
support the foundation in the sense that it was prominently
mentioned in news coverage of the book's launch that amounted
to thousands of pounds worth of free advertising, promotion and
media space. The Charity Commission didn't buy it, their report says.
The Inquiry formerly wrote to mister and Missus ingram Moore
(31:50):
to provide them with an opportunity to rectify matters by
making a donation to the charity. They declined to do so.
The Inquiry looked at the Gin and the SPA and
the deal with the media company. It found that there
had been repeated instances a blurring of boundaries between private
(32:11):
and charitable interests, and repeated instances of misconduct and all
mismanagement on the part of Hannah and her husband. The
Ingram wars had damaged public trust and confidence in charities generally.
The broadcaster Piers Morgan tweeted his response to the report shameful.
(32:35):
The singer Michael Ball recalled how incredibly proud he had
been of his duet with Captain Tom and added to
see it twisted. Really, it's a real shame. It's easy
to criticize Hannah Ingram. More too easy. I want to
(32:56):
suggest another villain of this story, You and me and
everyone who's ever donated to a charity without pausing to
ask what evidence exists that the charity is effective and
well run. Just think back to April twenty twenty, when
(33:17):
the British public were pledging millions upon millions of pounds
inspired by the sight of an elderly veteran hobbling up
and down his own garden. What did most of us
know about how the network of NHS charities would use
the money, not much, and yet we gave anyway because
(33:40):
giving felt good. No harm done, you might say, in
this case, the charities probably used the money well, but
the problem is the culture it creates. We give money
to get a warm glow and don't give much thought
to how the money will be spent. Later, when the
fundraising effort moved to the brand new Captain Tom Foundation,
(34:04):
what did we know about how this foundation would be run? Nothing?
Yet some people gave anyway because giving felt good. In
his book Doing Good Better, the philosopher Will McCaskill points
out that the charity world often lacks effective feedback mechanisms.
(34:27):
Invest in a bad company and you lose money, But
give money to a bad charity and you probably won't
hear about its failings, which may explain why Hannah ingram
Moore didn't see a problem with her plans bad charities
CRUs on goodwill all the time. That said, there's not
(34:47):
usually as much goodwill as there was for Captain Tom,
and charities aren't usually quite as bad as the Captain
Tom Foundation was. We can blame Hannah ingram Moore, of course,
for giving in to the temptation to blur the boundaries
between private and charitable interests. But if donors routine did
(35:09):
as much due diligence on charities as investors do on companies,
that temptation might never have existed. The Captain Tom Foundation
shut up shop. The Charity Commission disqualified Hannah and her
husband from running or being a trustee of any charity.
(35:30):
But the Ingram Wars had one last ignominy to suffer.
They'd appealed to the local authority for retrospective planning permission
for their spa building. The planners said no, it would
have to be demolished. The media once again converged on
(35:51):
the Ingram Moore's house with their cameras, this time to
film an excavator knocking down a spa in the garden
where Tom Moore had once inspired a nation. Now they
are pile of rubble. Sometimes the metaphors write themselves. For
(36:30):
a full list of our sources, see the show notes
at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me
Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilly.
It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound
(36:51):
design and original music are the work of the Pascal Wise.
Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio.
Thanks also to Barry Wise, who provided the pieces on
piano for this episode. Bender Daphaffrey edited the scripts. The
show features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford,
(37:13):
Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, Massaamn Roe, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright.
The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work
of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohene, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody,
Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is
a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios
(37:36):
in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show,
please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes
a difference to us and if you want to hear
the show, add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on
the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot Fm,
slash plus, m
Host
Tim Harford
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