Dame Vera sent message to Captain Sir Tom on day she died
Charity fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore got a special message from forces sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn on the day she died.
Dame Vera, who entertained troops with morale-boosting visits to the front line during the Second World War, died aged 103 on June 18.
He told Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: “She was congratulating me on the effort to raise all this money. There was a little kind letter from her and that came on the day she died.”
Sir Tom ,100, also spoke about a horrific accident two years ago, which left his family fearing he was about to die.
He had fallen and hit his head on the dishwasher, suffering a broken hip and rib.
He was given oxygen but had punctured a lung – the oxygen leaked out just below his skin, he said, he started to blow up and it was gradually strangling him.
After his fall, he ordered that a do-not-resuscitate notice be put on his medical notes.
He told the programme: “I always felt that if you are gone, you’re gone. I didn’t want to finish up in an old people’s home without any facility of my own, having to be fed in any way. I would hate to be like that.”
He described the fall as “rather painful, but in the end I’m still here”.
It was the care he received during two months in hospital, and then lengthy spells in rehabilitation, which led him to his record-breaking fundraiser to help frontline workers.
Despite every step being uncomfortable, he managed to raise almost £39 million for the NHS in nearly four weeks.