As a war veteran, Armistice Day was always an important and poignant day for Captain Sir Tom Moore.
Every year, he was joined by his family to watch the remembrance service on TV, paying his respects to his friends and military colleagues who made the ultimate sacrifice.
But this year the pandemic hero's loving family are preparing to mark the day without him for the first time following his death in February.
Captain Tom inspired the nation with his NHS fundraiser, collecting £38.9 million by walking laps of his garden. His efforts encouraged other people to take on their own fundraising challenges, earning him a knighthood from the Queen and a flypast to mark his 100th birthday.
He used his time in the spotlight to raise as much money for charity as possible, and one of his final efforts was to help his daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, design a commemorative poppy for the The Royal British Legion.
In the run up to Armistice Day, which has always been “hugely important” for her family, Hannah hopes people can remember her late father by buying the special edition pin.
Speaking to the Mirror, Hannah said: “It’s always been a really important day for us. My father was almost in his 50s when I was born, so war was a long time ago.
“He didn’t talk about it - not because he didn’t want to, but I think because he didn’t want to burden these young girls with such horror.
“We always took part in community events. Every year he would buy a little wooden cross, write on it, and send it off.
“One of the reasons we wanted to support the Royal British Legion and will always have a collaboration with them is that we want to support our veterans. My father felt his whole life had been defined by those years of war.”
Hannah Ingram-Moore, who describes her dad as a “beacon of hope,” designed the beautiful silver and gold pin with his input when he was still alive.
Captain Tom, born in Keighley, West Yorkshire in April 1920, captured our hearts at the beginning of lockdown in 2020, when he walked 100 laps of his garden to raise money for PPE for NHS workers battling the Covid-19 pandemic on the frontline.
He went on to celebrate his 100th birthday and write an autobiography about his incredible life before he tragically passed away in February this year after testing positive for Covid.
Nine months on from his passing, Hannah and the family are still getting used to life without him.
“As a family, we lived for nearly 14 years as a five. It’s still hard to be a four and it still takes some adjusting to. But we always recognised this day would come."
Fondly recalling her time with her father, she describes a “magic fizz” that bubbled up when she and her family moved into a new home with then 87-year-old Captain Sir Tom, shortly after her mother had passed away.
“We didn’t want him to be by himself. But we didn’t forecast the incredible connection that would happen. It was extraordinary,” she says.
“We would suddenly be this multi-generational family, which we had never considered.”
Hannah notes that, at the time they all moved in together, her son Benji, now 17, was just four years old. Her daughter Georgia, now 12, hadn’t even been born. And the impact it had on the family was incredible to witness.
She says: “Dad suddenly got younger, right in front of our eyes. And the kids? They’re different because of it.
“About a week and a half after we all moved in, [Dad] leaned in quietly and said to me: ‘You’ve given me my visibility back. I’ve become visible to the world again as an older person’.
“When you’re older, your brain is still intact and you feel you have so much more to give - and what we gave him was purpose. Everyone needs to be needed.
"We miss all of it. But the legacy lives on, which is extraordinary.”
When her father was invited to write an autobiography about his life, she sat with him while he recalled stories of being stationed in western Burma (now Myanmar) in the Second World War - some of which she’d never heard before.
“It was such a privilege as his daughter to sit and listen to him recounting memories for his autobiography,” she says. “I don’t think he’d ever have written them down otherwise.”
In particular, she recalls being moved when Captain Tom talked about his best friend, who tragically drowned.
“He poignantly remembered these men who gave up their lives as young people to allow us to be free. We always felt the burning resonance of it,” she says.
As her father got older, the family still marked Armistice Day every year, making sure they watched the service together. But this year, they’ll be marking it in a slightly different way.
“We have a lovely community here, so this year we’ll be taking our wreath down to the village memorial. We want to make sure we’re remembering him.”
When Hannah pays tribute to her father and all soldiers who have risked their lives in battle, she’ll wear the stunning poppy pin she designed with him.
“We hoped he’d still be here and he’d be able to talk about it. It has 100 rivets for his 100 years and it’s got his name on the back. We wanted it to be simple,” she says.
All proceeds from the pin, which costs £29.99, will go to The Royal British Legion, to fund the charity’s work in supporting veterans - something Captain Tom was passionate about.
“He felt so passionately that we should take care of not only those who are serving, but those who have served and need help, whether that be physical or mental health help.”
Looking back on the last two years since her father set out to raise £1000 for the NHS, sometimes Hannah can hardly believe it has all happened.
She says: “Never ever could we have predicted, in any way, shape or form, that in three and a half weeks, it would reach £38.9 million. Or that people from 163 countries would have donated, or that he’d connected people around the world.”
She quickly realised that her father’s message of hope was spreading around the world at a time when people needed it most.
“Instantly, he was a voice of calm. People could see he was genuine and he was able to say, ‘This is terrible, but I promise you, things will get better’,” she says.
“That imprint of positivity happened almost instantly. People responded instantly and said, ‘yes, we want to believe it’. People all around the country started to do things because if Captain Tom could (at 100 years old) then anybody could.”
Soon, Captain Tom’s message began to transcend borders and Hannah found herself accompanying her father in interviews with media from around the world as donations poured in.
Hannah notes: “Those people weren’t donating to our NHS (as much as we love it). They were donating to hope.
“He crossed the boundaries of gender, race, nationality, social status and age, almost like no one else has done it. He became a beacon of hope, not just here, but around the world.”
But about two weeks after the fundraising drive began, she remembers feeling as though their lives had all changed, “in a way that we could never completely change them back.”
As long-lens cameras poked through the bushes in her garden and drones flew over the house, the family realised things were suddenly different.
“My father could see that my husband and I were running ragged. We could see what people needed and we wanted to propel people to see him and feel him, but it came at a personal price. We had 1.5 million emails in the first 10 days,” she recalls.
When they hit the staggering milestone of raising £20 million, Captain Tom sat Hannah down and suggested calling it a day, thinking of the family’s wellbeing.
“I remember saying to him that I didn’t think we should stop because the world needed him, and we, as a family, needed to find a way to allow the world to access him,” she says.
From there, the family dug deep and found “resilience” which helped them carry on and spread Captain Tom’s message far and wide.
“We all did it because we wanted the world to have access to this beacon of hope,” Hannah recalls.
As part of his legacy, the family started working on The Captain Tom Foundation, which was set up to champion things that mattered to him - including combating loneliness and promoting education and equality.
“In his last few days, he talked about The Captain Tom Foundation in a way that showed he felt such pride in leaving this legacy behind,” Hannah recalls.
“Now, we have to come to terms with the loss of him and what life will look like after that, because he was such a huge part of our life every day.
“We feel it like an ache but we know that almost two years on, the imprint of his legacy is stronger than ever.”
The new Captain Sir Tom Moore Poppy Pins are exclusively available from the Royal British Legion Poppy Shop
