War hero Tom Moore,99, has raised more than £12,000,000 for the NHS (Picture: Reuters)

A 99-year-old army veteran who won the hearts of the nation by challenging himself to walk 100 lengths of his garden has raised an incredible £12 million and counting for the NHS.

Captain Tom Moore aimed to raise £1,000 by completing 100 laps of his 25- Bedfordshire garden before turning 100 at the end of the month. However, a burst of donations on Tuesday saw that sum pledged on average every 20 seconds, with the fundraiser quickly topping £1 million by 9am.

That increased ten fold in the past 24 hours, with the fundraiser reaching £7 million by Wednesday afternoon, £10 million by yesterday evening and £12 million early this morning.



After reaching the £10 million milestone, his twitter account said: ‘Virtutis Fortuna Comes I want to thank all the people behind the scenes including @JustGiving, @BBCBreakfast and @GMB for being behind us from the start, and all the wonderful people donating!’


Retired British Army Captain Tom Moore, 99, has pledged to walk 100 laps of his garden to raise money for health workers on the coronavorus front line (Picture: Reuters)

Captain Tom Moore is pictured in uniform during his time in the army (Picture: Reuters)

5 MILLION!



Huge thank you to @JustGiving who had over 90,000 people on Tom’s page at one time, and had to try ensure that the site didn’t crash.



WOW – just speechless. #walkwithtom #tomorrowwillbeagoodday — Captain Tom Moore (@captaintommoore) April 15, 2020

More than a quarter of million people around the world have now donated and at one point more than 90,000 were on his page at the same time.

‘Every penny that we get, they [the NHS] deserve every one of it’ he told the BBC, after the total exceeded the £5m mark.

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A new flood of donations came in after Health Secretary Matt Hancock paid a special tribute to Mr Moore at the daily Downing Street press briefing, describing him as a ‘true inspiration’

But it’s not just donations that are flooding in.

Inspired by the war hero’s fundraiser, a school girl has started a campaign for children to make cards for his 100th birthday on 30 April.

Reegan Davies, 8, from Port Talbot, Wales, has set a goal of making 1,500 virtual cards for Mr Moore, who served in India and Burma.

We want to give back to this Legend TOM @captaintommoore who has raised over One Million pound for our @NHSMillion – we are kindly asking all kids across the UK to make him a Virtual Birthday card to say thanks – here are the instructions #makeacardfortom Please all share #NHS pic.twitter.com/f8Ck8LQZwq — Reegan Davies (@DaviesReegan) April 14, 2020

A school girl has encouraged other children to send cards to Tom Moore for his 100th birthday, on April 30th

‘You can post them on any social media with the hashtag #makeacardfortom’, she said.

Mr Moore, originally from Keighley in Yorkshire, began to raise funds to thank the ‘magnificent’ NHS staff who helped him with treatment for cancer and a broken hip.

Speaking about the fundraising efforts, he 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?’

He is now hoping to complete his 100 laps challenge by Thursday.

His challenge and fundraising has been praised by a range of famous faces, including Boris Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds, who described him as a ‘total hero’.

If you would like to donate, click on this link to Tom’s fundraising page.

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