Capt Tom inspired hundreds of millions

I THOROUGHLY applaud the call for a statue of Captain Tom, whose remarkable achievement in the 100th year of his life inspired hundreds of millions of people here and around the world.

What better site for that statue than the ‘vacant’ plinth at the northwest corner of Trafalgar Square, that has been crying out for a permanent occupant since 1841.

But I can’t help wondering, if the proposal for a statue to the great man is approved, how long it will be before some woke nincompoop objects on the grounds that in the dim and distant past the Captain’s family may have had ‘links’, however tenuous, with the slave trade!

The fact is that I doubt there is anyone in this country who could not be shown to have such links in one way or the other – even if it only amounted to buying sugar, rum or cotton produced on plantations worked by slaves.

Robert Readman Dorset