Sorting office set up to open Captain Tom Moore’s many birthday cards
A dedicated sorting office has been set up to open the tens of thousands of birthday cards that have been sent to Captain Tom Moore.
The Second World War veteran, who has raised more than £28 million for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his garden, turns 100 on April 30.
People from across the country have written to him and a sorting office has been set up at his grandson’s school, Bedford School, to help him to see as many of the birthday messages as possible.
Posted by Bedford School on Wednesday, April 22, 2020
More than 90,000 cards have already been delivered to the school hall, nicknamed Captain Tom’s sorting office, and they continue to arrive by the school minibus load.
The school has been collecting them from Cpt Moore’s local Post Office in Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire, and they are opened in the school hall by volunteers working in shifts and socially distancing.
Some of the cards contain donations to the fundraising campaign – with a cheque for £5,000 in one of the cards – and others contain gifts such as knitted Captain Toms.
The school said Cpt Moore was “overwhelmed” when he was shown a selection of the cards displayed in the hall in a Skype call, and thanked everyone who had sent them.
His 16-year-old grandson Benjie Ingram-Moore is helping to pick a selection to take to him, and photographs are being taken of as many as possible to show Cpt Moore.
Year 11 student Benjie told BBC Breakfast: “I think a lot of the cards are so heartfelt and it really shows the effort people have put in.
“I think he will really appreciate that.
“I’m going to try to take as many pictures of them as I can and show them to him as he will happily sit through and read them all.
“It just shows that people really do care about these sort of things.
“Especially in a tough time. I think people really have joined together to make the effort for this.”
James Hodgson, Headmaster at Bedford School, told the broadcaster: “It’s a wonderful story at a time where frankly everybody needed it.
“It’s also a real reaffirmation of people’s kindness and I’m a great believer that people are fundamentally kind and this is just the most wonderful way to show it.”
Volunteers are saving the used stamps from the cards to donate to the RSPB, the school said.
