Veteran, 99, raises more than £3 million for NHS in half a day

A 99-year-old veteran who challenged himself to walk 100 lengths of his garden has raised more than £3 million for the NHS in just over half a day.

Tom Moore, who served in India and Burma, originally set out to raise £1,000 – but a burst of donations on Tuesday saw that sum pledged on average every 20 seconds.

The fundraiser had topped £1 million as of 9am on Tuesday, before surpassing £4 million as of 11pm.

His Twitter account said: “We cannot wait to tell the news to Tom in the morning, he will not believe his ears!

“Thanks each and every one of you – we are in awe of you, but especially our frontline staff who need this now more than ever.”

Mr Moore, originally from Keighley in Yorkshire, was aiming to walk 100 lengths of his Bedfordshire garden before he turns 100 on April 30.

His challenge and fundraising has been praised by a range of famous faces, with England hooker Jamie George saying he had been “truly inspired”, Carole Decker from T’Pau said he was an “amazing fella”, and the US ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson saying it was “amazing what people can do”.

Speaking about the fundraising efforts, Mr Moore told BBC News: “It seems almost like fairy land to think that we started off at 1,000 to a sum of money that’s not believable, is it?”

Mr Moore, who recently had a hip operation, is ahead of schedule with his walking, now hoping to finish the challenge by Thursday.

His fundraiser has led more than 200,000 individual donors to sponsor him for his 100 laps.

Mr Moore, who trained as a civil engineer before enlisting in the army for the Second World War, rising to captain, told the BBC: “I never imagined anything like this, but I’m so pleased, and I hope it just goes on because the services I got from all these doctors and nurses was absolutely outstanding.

“And they’re such nice people too.”

Donations to NHS Charities Together can be made at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tomswalkforthenhs