Captain Tom Moore's family says getting rid of their spa pool is not ‘an option’ they’d considered
13 October 2023, 8:16
The family of Captain Sir Tom Moore have refused to commit to getting rid of the controversial spa pool that was added to a building created in his name.
Hannah Ingram-Moore, daughter of the NHS lockdown icon Captain Tom built the pool without planning permission in the grounds of her Bedfordshire home.
Asked in an interview whether she would ‘get rid of it,’ the family said they “haven’t looked at that as an option.”
The family told Piers Morgan on TalkTV that the ‘resistance pool’ was planned to help Captain Tom’s rehabilitation.
She said: “People would have seen we had a small above ground pool on the driveway and when [Captain Tom] had fallen and broken his hip and was terribly ill he came home and wanted to rehabilitate and said 'I fancy walking up and down in the pool'.
“No chance of that - maybe we could get one (where he could)...walk against the resistance.
She also said she wanted somewhere to store thousands of cards sent to the family by well-wishers.
“Storage, multipurpose, to be able to put some of his things, his memorabilia, and a community building to help the local aging population, holding Pilates classes, walking up and down in the resistance pool, and have meetings, as the perfect place to speak about the legacy my father left,” she said.
But Piers pointed out that Captain Tom was already dead by the time the plans were introduced.
Mrs Ingram-Moore said: “We wanted it as part of that legacy and because it was a nice thing to do.”
Asked whether they would get rid of the pool, Mr Ingram-Moore replied: “We haven't looked at that as an option...we don't want to commit to it.”
Mrs Ingram-Moore said her family kept £800,000 in profits from three of his books because it was "what he wanted".
She said her fundraising father wanted them to keep the money from the books in Club Nook Ltd - a firm separate to the Captain Tom Foundation charity.
Sir Tom became a well-known figure when he raised £38 million for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday at the height of the first national Covid-19 lockdown in April 2020. He died in February 2021.
On why the book money did not go to charity, she said: "They were my father's books. He wrote them and he decided what to do with the income from them.
"It was his wishes, not ours.
"He made the decision about the things that he did. We didn't act for him."
Ms Ingram-Moore said there was nothing in the books that referred to the Captain Tom Foundation, set up to celebrate legacy.
But since recording the interview, Mr Morgan said "we discovered a statement on the charity's website and a tweet from Captain Tom's account which do imply that the books could support the foundation. The charity is mentioned in one of the books."
He claimed that the prologue of Captain Tom's autobiography, Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, also seems to suggest it was raising funds for the foundation.
Ms Ingram-Moore said the family had even received death threats.
She said: "There is a forum... they were all discussing how they were going to come and kill us all."
Sir Tom had his knighthood conferred on him by the late Queen in July 2020 in recognition of his fundraising achievements.