Captain Tom Day: Family and Esther Rantzen to launch event to help older people feel heard

• Watch a video report by ITV News Anglia's Raveena Ghattaura

Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter said knowing her father was laughed at for trying to get a job at the age of 86 was the motivation behind plans for an annual fundraising day to empower older people.

The 100-year-old gained world-wide fame during the first Covid lockdown after raising £38.9m for NHS charities in just three weeks.

But his family said he had not always felt so well-appreciated and admitted feeling "invisible" following the death of his wife in 2006.

Now the charity he helped set up has plans for an annual fundraising day - similar to Children in Need - to empower older people and help revolutionise the way society sees them.

The Captain Tom Foundation is working alongside Dame Esther Rantzen on its latest venture - Captain Tom Day - to help make sure the older generation "feels seen, heard and, most importantly, valued by society".

When the World War Two veteran challenged himself to walk 100 laps of his Bedfordshire garden by his 100th birthday he soon found himself making headlines across the world and was knighted by the Queen a few months later.

But his daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore said before that, like many people his age, he had sometimes felt overlooked.

"He tried to get a job at 86 and people laughed at him," Ms Ingram-Moore said, adding that her father found himself alone after the death of his wife in 2006 and he "wanted purpose".

She said he applied without success for jobs in shops, warehousing and deliveries. "He said 'nobody even wanted to talk to me'," she said.

Ms Ingram-Moore, who lives in Marston Moretaine, recalled a conversation with her father after he moved in with her family in 2007.

"He said to me 'I'd started to feel invisible and you've given me my visibility back because now people don't look through me, they look at me and I feel needed and I have purpose and I'm wanted'," she said.

She hopes Captain Tom Day will stop so many people feeling "out of sight and out of mind" and will show the positive impact they can still have on society.

While talks about the detail are ongoing, the inaugural event could take place next June and the foundation also plans to launch an award that celebrates innovation and inventions to help empower the elderly.

The foundation has enlisted the help of Esther Rantzen, who set up The Silver Line charity in 2013 to help tackle loneliness in older people.

Ms Ingram-Moore said she was encouraged to create Captain Tom Day following a conversation with the veteran broadcaster.

She said Ms Rantzen "had this dream of creating a day that would replicate Children in Need, Comic Relief, but for our ageing population and for connecting those younger people with older people".

Captain Sir Tom's daughter added that she constantly thought about how her father would feel about what they were doing - and felt confident he would have approved.

"I genuinely talk to him about it in my head and he would have just said 'that's it, Hannah, you've got it'," she said.

"I think he would feel so proud that we were trying to tackle that stigma and give older people a voice."

The Captain Tom Foundation was set up by him and his family before his death in February 2021.