England has a new hero

99-year-old WW1 hero Captain Tom Moore set out last Thursday to walk 100 lengths of his lawn before he turns 100 on April 30 - but he finished ahead of schedule, this morning (Thursday). He smashed through his initial funraising target of £1,000 for NHS Charities Together in less than a day - and has now raised more £12 million for the health service.

Captain Moore, who was born in Keighley, West Yorkshire, even caused his JustGiving page to crash on Wednesday when 90,000 people rushed to sponsor him.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said a personal thank you to Captain Moore during his daily coronavirus press briefing. 'Captain Tom, you’re an inspiration to us all and we thank you,’ he said. 

Speaking to Victoria Derbyshire as he reached the landmark £5million total this morning, Captain Moore said the achievement was 'completely out of this world' and thanked those who have donated.

'Thank you so much to all the people who have subscribed to the NHS because for every penny that we get, they deserve every one of them,' he said.  

He added that he never believed he would raise 'anything near that sort of money' when he began his sponsored walk on April 9. 

'At no time when we started off with this exercise did we anticipate we'd get anything near that sort of money,' he said.

'It just shows that people have such high regard for matters of our National Health Service and it's really amazing that people have paid so much money.'

Captain Moore began his fundraiser to thank the 'magnificent' NHS staff who supported him through cancer and a broken hip. 

He was inspired by the 'amazing' treatment he continues to receive after falling and breaking his hip in 2018, and on his recovery from skin cancer.