Captain Tom steps up to help the lonely
‘Start conversations with older people’ says Sir Tom
SOCIETY: Captain Sir Tom Moore, the Yorkshireman who captured the world’s attention with his fundraising walk around his garden, is now tackling a new campaign: loneliness.
After raising almost £ 33m, Captain Tom will now host a podcast in which he encourages people to start conversations with older people.
HE CAME to epitomise the never saydie attitude of the older generation.
Captain Sir Tom Moore, the Yorkshireman who captured the world’s attention with his fundraising walk around his garden, is now tackling a new campaign: loneliness.
After raising almost £ 33m, Captain Tom will now host a podcast in which he encourages people to start conversations with older people.
The Second WorldWar veteran will be a guest host on the series, called The Originals, which will include interviews with a bodybuilder in his 80s and a 73- yearold skipping expert.
The podcast, in partnership with Cadbury and Age UK, is part of the Donate Your Words campaign aimed at reducing loneliness. In a video promoting the podcast, Captain Tom said: “My next mission is just as important as my last, and fortunately for me there’s very little walking involved.
“We older people are the originals and we have more in common than you may think. You name it, we’ve done it, and there are hundreds of amazing stories just waiting to be told.
“To show you just how easy it may be, I have created The Originals podcast. ‘ I’ve interviewed some fascinating people and discovered some incredible stories.”
Captain Tom had set out to raise £ 1,000 by walking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday in April.
But he ended up raising almost £ 33m for the NHS with his fundraising efforts making headlines in the UK and further afield.
The news comes as new analysis shows that half of older people needing help with everyday tasks such as getting washed and dressed had unmet care needs prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
Some 1.6m people aged 65 and over in England were not having all of their care needs met in 2019, Age UK said – around one in seven of the overall older population.
The charity analysed data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, collected in 2018- 19, and extrapolated it using the Office for National Statistics’ midyear population estimate for
2019.
Its new report, Health, Care and Cash: Improving the Lives of Older People in Red Wall England, looks at data about older people who live in red wall constituencies and the social policies most likely to help them.
A swathe of seats in northern England, traditionally viewed as safe Labour seats, were won by the Conservatives in 2019 and are likely to be hotly contested in the next general election.