Armed only with a walking frame, Captain Sir Tom Moore started a private war with Covid-19.
It is now our duty to live up to his inspiration and finish it.
That would be the most fitting memorial to the most extraordinary, uplifting hero of the pandemic.
The centenarian’s daily struggle to walk a hundred yards caught the imagination of a country struggling with an unknown enemy – and gave it hope.
He did not look for fame but showed the kind of modest courage that we recognise in Second World War warriors.
There were many imitators, who did much good work, but there was only one Cap’n Tom.
And he took celebrity in his stride, a quiet-spoken Yorkshireman to the last.
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He was revered in his home town of Keighley, where I joined the NHS clap at Airedale Hospital with local people who knew his family.
Captain Sir Tom must have known that his exhausting campaign for the NHS would take its toll on his frail body.
But he soldiered on and we all benefit from his valour.
He liked to say: “Tomorrow will be better.”
And we should never forget that for our better tomorrow – which will come – he gave the last and best of his today.
