Captain Sir Tom Moore: Day planned to empower older people
- Published
Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter says she hopes to start a fundraising day in his honour, to empower older people.
Hannah Ingram-Moore, 49, said the first Captain Tom Day could be held in June, with talks about the detail ongoing with national charities.
Capt Sir Tom raised £33m in donations for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.
Ms Ingram-Moore said her father, who died in February, had become a "hero for older people".
But the Army veteran had told her he felt "invisible" after the death of his wife in 2006, and before he moved in with her and her family at their Marston Moretaine home in Bedfordshire a year later.
"He tried to get a job at 86 and people laughed at him," said Ms Ingram-Moore.
"He said to me 'I'd started to feel invisible and you've given me my visibility back because now people don't look through me, they look at me and I feel needed and I have purpose and I'm wanted'."
She said Captain Tom Day would "celebrate and empower our ageing population".
Ms Ingram-Moore said it would replicate fundraisers such as Children In Need or Comic Relief, "but for our ageing population and for connecting those younger people with older people".
She added: "I feel like we're starting a revolution that will allow our growing older generation to feel seen and heard and valued in a way that I don't think we do right now."
Ms Ingram-Moore said she thought her father, who grew up in West Yorkshire, would "feel so proud that we were trying to tackle that stigma and give older people a voice".
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