The funeral of Captain Sir Tom Moore will be held on Saturday in what his family said would be a ‘small’ private service as they urged the public to stay at home.
The NHS fundraising hero’s daughters Lucy Teixeira and Hannah Ingram-Moore said today that they had ‘no choice’ but to hold a basic ceremony for family only.
They also revealed Captain Tom had written about his funeral in a book before his death, saying he wanted it to end with My Way by Frank Sinatra ‘because I always did things my way and especially like the line about having too few regrets to mention’.
In the book, Captain Tom added that it was ‘odd and rather touching to think that people might weep over my passing – strangers I’ve never even met’ and that he would want to look down and ‘chuckle at everyone making a lot of fuss over me’.
The family said Captain Tom had openly spoken about his funeral over the past year and had wondered if ‘perhaps the interest in him over the last 12 months would mean we would need to have more Victoria sponge cakes available for the extra guests’.
Captain Tom Moore at his home in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, after he achieved his goal of 100 laps of his garden in April last year
Captain Tom is pictured in Barbados last December with (from left) grandchildren Benjie and Georgia, their mother Hannah, who is Captain Tom’s daughter and father Colin Ingram-Moore
He captured the hearts of Britain with his fundraising during the first lockdown when he walked 100 laps of his Bedfordshire garden before his 100th birthday.
The Second World War veteran, who raised more than £32million for NHS Charities Together, died at Bedford Hospital on February 2 after testing positive for Covid-19.
In line with current restrictions, the funeral will be attended by eight members of Sir Tom’s immediate family – his two daughters, four grandchildren and his sons-in-law.
The family will inter Sir Tom’s ashes in Yorkshire, with his parents and grandparents in the Moore family plot, once this is permitted by eased coronavirus restrictions.
Captain Tom’s family said they understood that so many people wanted to pay their respects, but urged the public to ‘continue to support the NHS by staying at home’.
They added that they had set up an online book of condolence and people could also donate to The Captain Tom Foundation or plant a tree in his memory.
Captain Tom’s family said he had also spent ‘many enjoyable hours’ in the final few months of his life writing a book called Captain Tom’s Life Lessons.
He wanted to release this just before his 101th birthday, but his relatives said the final chapter was ‘so poignant and reading it brings us so much comfort and warmth’.
They are therefore sharing the last chapter ‘as a thank you, from our father Tom and us as a family, for the love and kindness the nation and the world have shown him’.
In the chapter, Captain Tom writes: ‘Previously, my funeral would have made one little line in the local newspaper and been attended by only a handful of people, but I expect there’ll be a few more now.
‘Someone will have to make extra cake and sandwiches, and it won’t be me.
‘I want the service to end with My Way by Frank Sinatra because I always did things my way and especially like the line about having too few regrets to mention.
Captain Tom is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle on July 17 last year
The Queen talks to Captain Sir Tom Moore and his family after he was knighted last July
‘It’s odd and rather touching to think that people might weep over my passing – strangers I’ve never even met.
‘If I can, I’d like to watch my own funeral from a distance.
‘That would be quite the joke as I looked down and chuckled at everyone making a lot of fuss over me.’
He said he wished to be cremated and for his ashes to be taken to Yorkshire, but would not mind a ‘little white headstone somewhere to mark my existence, a bit like the ones they have in military cemeteries’.
He said for his epitaph he would ask for the ‘simple inscription of my name, the dates of my earthly span, and the words: ‘I told you I was old” – in reference to comedian Spike Milligan’s famous epitaph ‘I told you I was ill’.
Shortly after his death earlier this month, Ms Teixeira said Captain Tom would have a ‘quiet’ send-off and the family was planning an understated funeral that would be ‘suitable’ for him.
She said at the time: ‘At the moment, my sister Hannah and I are planning a careful send-off that is suitable to him, quite quiet in a manner that he would say to us ‘well done, girls’.
‘I know that there are things being talked about, but my sister and I are focussing on planning the next stage and celebrating the end of his life.’
Last week, Mrs Ingram-Moore revealed the family received a ‘lovely letter for the Queen’ following his death, adding that the monarch felt ‘genuine loss’.
She said the Queen and her father were ‘two similar souls’ and would have probably had ‘a cup of tea and had a good chin wag’ after he was knighted last year, if it wasn’t for the pandemic.
Buckingham Palace paid a personal tribute following his death, with a spokesman saying the Queen’s thoughts were with his family – and the flag at Number 10 was lowered to half-mast.
Captain Tom, from Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, was knighted by the 94-year-old Queen in a unique outdoor ceremony at Windsor Castle on July 17.
As well as being knighted, Captain Tom was made an honorary colonel and an honorary member of the England cricket team.
Mrs Ingram-Moore also said last week how Captain Tom’s heart would have been ‘broken’ to hear about trolling the family received.
Speaking about her father’s days in hospital and their final family holiday to the Caribbean, she said she could not tell her father ‘people are hating us’ after his mammoth fundraising efforts.
She told BBC Breakfast: ‘I couldn’t tell him. I think it would have broken his heart, honestly, if we’d said to him people are hating us.
Captain Tom, with (left to right) grandson Benji, daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and granddaughter Georgia, at his home in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, in April 2020
‘Because how do you rationalise to a 100-year-old man that something so incredibly good can attract such horror?
‘So we contained it within the four of us and we said we wouldn’t play to … that vile minority, we wouldn’t play to them, we’re not, because we are talking to the massive majority of people who we connect with.’
Mrs Ingram-Moore also said her father had wanted to come home to steak and chips after he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus.
She said: ‘I said to him in the last few days: ‘So, what do you want to eat when you come home?’ And we decided it was steak and chips.
‘He was really excited about coming out for steak and chips and getting his frame back outside and his walker.
‘The last real conversation was positive and about carrying on, and that’s a lovely place to be.’
Mrs Ingram-Moore said that when Captain Tom went into hospital, the family ‘really all believed he’d come back out’.
‘We thought the oxygen would help, that he would be robust enough, (but) the truth is he just wasn’t. He was old and he just couldn’t fight it,’ she added.
Before he died, the centenarian got to tick a holiday in the Caribbean off his bucket list when the family travelled to Barbados just before Christmas.
‘It was just amazing,’ Mrs Ingram-Moore said.
‘He sat in 29 degrees outside, he read two novels, he read the newspapers every day, and we sat and we talked as a family, we went to restaurants (because we could there) and he ate fish on the beach and what a wonderful thing to do. I think we were all so pleased we managed to give him that.’