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Captain Sir Tom Moore RiP

planetgeli said:
Because at the same time as Tom was doing goodness, so were loads of other people. Margaret Payne, who is 90 and walks with a stick, but is just Margaret Payne of Scotland, climbed her stairs 282 times ffs (the height of one of her favourite mountains). Eventually, nearly a year on, she'd raised half a million.

Not 39 million. Margaret Payne. Of Scotland.
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I think what makes this man different from other elderly fundraisers, and elevated him so quickly to national hero status was that he was a proud ex-higher ranking solider and was therefore treated differently by the media, government, military, and royal family as a result. He was ever ready to be draped in the flag and wear medals, and fitted in seamlessly with the political zeitgeist and within the confines of the pomp that the state is willing to bestow.
COMP-KS-TWINUP-TOMMOORE.jpg


So it quickly stops being about him, and becomes about what is projected on to him, and then on to us.
BBCs Obit finishes " He was Britain as it needed to see itself: selfless, patriotic and undefeated - and never taking a backward step." I know what they're getting at ,but it bleeds right into British exceptionalism of an imagined "selfless, patriotic, undefeated, never faltering" flag-draped Britain.

Separate the man out of all this by all means, but everything surrounding him can go fuck itself. Still he seemed to enjoy it.
 
Served in the war and did his bit. Not sure I would have liked him that much in his middle years, I steer clear of womanisers and dare devils normally. He set up the cement factory where my boy worked for a while for example. But he became a symbol when lots of people desperately needed one.

I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of half days opening some of the tens and tens of thousands of 100th birthday cards he was sent. The outpourings of emotion in many of those, including from NHS staff was humbling, a word over used.

A lot was luck, I’m sure there were lots of other people who did their bit and raised a few hundred quid, but the lightning struck him, helped by some great PR from his daughter. And he did raise a lot of money, useful in its self and there was a debate about why he needed to do this when BoJo the clown and his government had underfunded the NHS so much, despite people now trying to airbrush that debate away.

And because of him a Spitfire snd Hurricane flew right over my fucking house.

RIP you probably not that nice but tenacious old git, I’ll raise a glass tonight.
 
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ska invita said:
BBCs Obit finishes " He was Britain as it needed to see itself: selfless, patriotic and undefeated - and never taking a backward step." I know what they're getting at ,but it bleeds right into British exceptionalism of an imagined "selfless, patriotic, undefeated, never faltering" flag-draped Britain.
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Sounds like this can be added to the long list of aspects of this pandemic that make me think GB should now stand for Gimmick Britain.
 
cupid_stunt said:
That statement was issued by the family a couple of hours ago, why would you question it?
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FFS I've told you. Their twitter feed reads differently and there were reports on MSM that backed that up.

Sorry Cupid but you're boring me with this now.
 
farmerbarleymow said:
What's that about then? I don't know anything about his history so it'd be interesting to know why you describe him as that.
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He apparently served in Burma during the war. Not a butcher I don't think. It was just where he was posted. And the womanising bullshit is just because he was twice married. Which many people have been.

It's not him I object to. It's the Diana-esque bullshit surrounding him. Much like the handclapping outside, something my ex, a nurse also told me she and her colleagues cringed at.
 
Petcha said:
So just so we're clear. And it's sad obviously than an old man has passed away from this horrible virus. But why was his family allowed to be by his bedside when as far as I understand everyone else has been forced to say goodbye online?
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I watched that Hospital doc series on the BBC the other day, and when an old woman was on her way out with covid at least two of her daughters visited. They just only had one at a time by the bedside.
 
Thora said:
I watched that Hospital doc series on the BBC the other day, and when an old woman was on her way out with covid at least two of her daughters visited. They just only had one at a time by the bedside.
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Yeah the rules often have quite a degree of flexibility on compassionate grounds when it comes to a patients final hours. And to be honest when it came out yesterday that his family were with him in hospital, I took that as a sign we were supposed to interpret as him likely being at the end of his life.
 
elbows said:
Yeah the rules often have quite a degree of flexibility on compassionate grounds when it comes to a patients final hours. And to be honest when it came out yesterday that his family were with him in hospital, I took that as a sign we were supposed to interpret as him likely being at the end of his life.
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Any idea why his family wouldn't have been self isolating given they live with him and he'd recently tested positive for Covid?
 
platinumsage said:
Did he even kill anyone? Seems like his military career was oriented around motorcycle training.
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tanks, from what i read

ETA
What did Captain Tom do in the war?
Tom Moore enlisted [conscripted] into the eighth battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (8 DWR), an infantry unit that was converted to operate Churchill tanks as part of the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC)
He was selected for officer training and rose to the rank of captain, later being posted to 9 DWR in India.
He served and fought in the Arakan in western Burma, later renamed Rakhine State
After this, he went with his regiment to Sumatra after the Japanese surrender in 1945 following the dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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In October 1941, Capt Tom became a member of the Royal Armoured Corps after 8 DWR had been redesignated as an armoured unit from an infantry battalion to operate Churchill tanks.
Capt Tom then joined 9th Battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment, which had also been redesignated as the 146th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps.
He was initially deployed to Mumbai and then Kolkata, taking part in the Battle of Ramree Island.
en.wikipedia.org

Battle of Ramree Island - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

He was then posted to Burma as part of the 14th Army, with the aim of driving out Nazi allies Japan from the then British colony in south-east Asia.

Capt Sir Tom, an expert motorcyclist, was tasked with riding a motorbike to the frontlines when tanks could not reach it.
"During the night, I was at the forefront with the Indian Army, fighting the night Japanese," he said during the Captain Tom's War documentary.
"And then, in the morning, when we thought the Japanese had gone home, my motorcycle came back into the picture.
"The only way of getting to the front from the tanks was on a motorcycle through several miles of jungle, which fell to me again.
"I went back to the regiment and that was a signal that the roads were clear and people came out again."
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Petcha said:
So just so we're clear. And it's sad obviously than an old man has passed away from this horrible virus. But why was his family allowed to be by his bedside when as far as I understand everyone else has been forced to say goodbye online?
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Debate on a Bedford community Facebook page about this today. Lots of people saying that Bedford hospital had indeed let them and other family members be at the bedside of end of life patients over the last six weeks. So it could be a difference in Policy between Bedford and Luton Trust and other trusts.
 
cupid_stunt said:
That statement was issued by the family a couple of hours ago, why would you question it?
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Fwiw, I think going on holiday overseas this December was deeply stupid, whoever was doing it, but it does look like he caught the virus after getting back.
 
strung out said:
Any idea why his family wouldn't have been self isolating given they live with him and he'd recently tested positive for Covid?
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I wondered that too. If he tested positive on 22nd Jan then close contacts should be self-isolating at home for 10 days. 2nd Feb is the earliest they should have been out of the house.

OTOH, hospital visits - seems with a supply of appropriate PPE hospitals can let visitors see family etc - no law broken.
 
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