Captain Tom Moore’s family say getting rid of spa pool ‘not an option’ they’ve looked at

In an interview with Piers Morgan on Talk TV, Captain Tom Moore’s family made no commitment to getting rid of the controversial spa pool, built after the late fundraising veteran’s death.

Hannah Ingram-Moore, the daughter of the late Captain Tom Moore – who raised £38 million to donate to the NHS during the Covid lockdowns by completing 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday – built the spa pool at her Bedfordshire home without planning permission.

In the interview she was asked whether she would ‘get rid of it’, but the family said they ‘hadn’t looked at that as an option’.

They told Morgan on his Talk TV show that the ‘resistance pool’ was planned to help Captain Tom with his rehabilitation.

Ingram-Moore said: “People would have seen we had a small above ground pool on the driveway and when [Captain Tom] had fallen and broken his hip and was terribly ill, he came home and wanted to rehabilitate and said ‘I fancy walking up and down in the pool’.

“No chance of that – maybe we could get one [where he could] walk against the resistance.”

Ingram-Moore also said she wanted somewhere to store all the cards the family were sent from well-wishers.

She told Piers: “Storage, multipurpose, to be able to put some of his things, his memorabilia, and a community building to help the local aging population, holding Pilates classes, walking up and down in the resistance pool, and have meetings, as the perfect place to speak about the legacy my father left.” 

However, the presenter made the point that Captain Tom had already died by the time the plans were introduced.

Mrs Ingram-Moore said: “We wanted it as part of that legacy and because it was a nice thing to do.”

Asked whether they would get rid of the pool, Mr Ingram-Moore replied: “We haven’t looked at that as an option…we don’t want to commit to it.”

Mrs Ingram-Moore said the family had even received death threats. “There is a forum… they were all discussing how they were going to come and kill us all,” she said.

She said the family kept the £800,000 in profits made from the three books because her father ‘wanted them to’, saying he wanted them to retain the money in the family’s Club Nook Ltd accounts – a firm they owned separately from the Captain Tom Foundation charity.

Mrs Ingram-Moore continued: “These were father’s books, and it was honestly such a joy for him to write them, but they were his books.

“He had an agent and they worked on that deal, and his wishes were that that money would sit in Club Nook, and in the end…” As Morgan interrupted: “For you to keep?”

“Yes, specifically,” Ingram-Moore replied.

Mrs Ingram-Moore said there was nothing in the books that referred to the Captain Tom Foundation, set up to celebrate his legacy.

But since recording the interview, Mr Morgan said: “We discovered a statement on the charity’s website and a tweet from Captain Tom’s account which do imply that the books could support the foundation. The charity is mentioned in one of the books.”

The prologue of his autobiography also seems to suggest the money would go to the charity in his name.

It reads: “Astonishingly at my age, with the offer to write this memoir I have also been given the chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation now established in my name.”

Captain Tom Moore was knighted by the late Queen in July 2020 in recognition of his fundraising achievements. He passed away in February 2021 at the age of 100.