The Old Man and the Wrecking Crew

in a deserted warehouse for our airship episode. If you would like to show us some love, and show more importantly Pascal wyse some love, go along to Webby Awards dot com and give us a vote. We will put a link in the show notes. An old man walked up and down his garden. Then he walked up and down his garden again. The next day, the old man walked up and down his garden. This may not sound very interesting, but in April twenty twenty, the old man walking up and down his garden was big news in

the UK. Day after day, the old man was on all the newspaper front pages. The BBC's and a camera crew to the garden to broadcast live to the nation. As the old man shuffled carefully along, gripping the handles of his walking frame, his shoulders hunched, smartly dressed in a shirt tie and blazer, army medals pinned to his chest. In endless television interviews, the old man shared his homespun optimistic philosophy. Tomorrow will be a good day. Lord knows

we needed some optimism. In April twenty twenty, a month into the fir COVID lockdown, what else was on the news in Britain? Daily government press conferences with their grim statistics about infections, hospital admissions and deaths. The slogan on the lectern exhorted Brits to stay home, protect the NHS. A yes, the NHS, the National Health Service. In windows of houses, people put up posters their children's crew drawings

of rainbows, adorned with the words thank you NHS. Once a week, at eight pm on Thursday, would all open our doors, stand on our doorsteps, bang spoons on saucepans and applaud the clap for carers. Then we'd all go back inside to assume the business of staying home. It was a strange time. Along came a man who captured the zeitgeist, an old man walking up and down his garden, Captain Tom Moore, was ninety nine years old. He was

recovering from a fall that had fractured his hip. He wanted to walk up and down his garden a hundred times before his one hundredth birthday, a sponsored walk to raise money for the NHS nurses who'd cared for him. The British people took Captain Tom to their hearts. Thousands of pounds rolled in for Captain Tom's sponsored walk, then millions, then tens of millions. It was the feel good story

of the Lockdown. I mentioned that this story started in a strange time, but as the world got back to normal, the story itself just got stranger. It tells us something about our own impulse to give to good causes, and it ends in disgrace with a wrecking crew in the old man's garden. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. Tom Moore's family had his one hundredth birthday party all planned out. They'd roaster Hog and hire a singer to perform hits from Tom's youth, like the Vera

Lynn classic We'll Meet Again. When that song came out in nineteen thirty nine, Tom was nineteen years old. Young men were going to fight in the Second World War, and Vera Lynn gave them the words for their goodbyes to their families. We'll meet again. Don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day. Tom served for six years in the British Army, rising to the rank of captain. He built a career in sales and management, raised two daughters, retired and nursed his

wife through dementia. After his wife died, Tom moved in with his younger daughter, Hannah, her husband, and their two children. Hannah ingram Moore is one of Britain's leading business women, as she says on her website, which offers her services as a brand marketing coach and acclaimed business strategist. The family lived in a big house in a village in Bedfordshire, an hour north of London. Gave Tom a purpose, as Hannah later explained to a journalist. It started to feel

invisible in old age. People look through me, he complained. Even in his nineties he could still make himself useful. In the ingram Moor's big house, Tom fed the dogs, mowed the lawn, tinkered in the workshop and cooked roast dinners. One day, unloading the dishwasher, he tripped. I got tangled up on my own feet, he recalled. He hit his head, fractured his hip, and punctured his lung. From his bedside, Hannah called her sister, he'd better come. He's not going

to make it, but he did. After weeks in hospital, Tom was well enough to go back home and determined to get back on his feet again. He ordered a treadmill so he could keep up his physio exercises during winter. The family started to plan his one hundredth birthday party for the end of April. Not many heroes of the Second World War made it to that age. Maybe the local newspaper would like to print his picture. Hannah drafted a press release, but then came COVID nobody would be

holding any parties in April. As the weather improved, Tom moved his physio regime into the garden, walking up and down with the aid of his walking frame. Hannah's husband suggested a challenge. Could you do one hundred laps of the garden to celebrate your one hundredth birthday. I'll give a pounder lap to the charity of your choice. Fair enough, said Tom. He chose NHS Charities Together, an organization that supports frontline healthcare workers, like the ones who had nursed

him back to health after his fall. The children took a video of Tom walking with his frame and sent it to friends and family. Hannah set up a page on the website just giving dot com. She set a target of a thousand pounds about twelve hundred and fifty dollars. Then she remembered the draft press release about the party that wasn't going to happen. She rewrote it, sharing details of Tom's sponsored walk instead, and sent it off to the local media. You can never be sure what's going

to go viral. Lots of people set themselves personal challenges and ask for pledges to charity to motivate them to see that challenge through. The vast majority hold no interest at all for anyone beyond friends and family. Why did Captain Tom make headlines? One answer comes from metaphor language we choose to talk about events. When the COVID pandemic came along, For example, some used the metaphor of a natural disaster, a tsunami of illness approaching our shores. Some

used metaphors from sport. We had to think of Lockdown as a marathon, not a sprint, but the most common metaphor war COVID was an attacker, an enemy that must be fought. The choice of metaphor matters In times of war. Governments can impose authoritarian measures that we'd never normally let them get away with. People can be asked to make

sacrifices for the common good. In a broadcast to the nation early in the first Lockdown, the Queen herself ninety three years old, asked Britains for those sacrifices.

raising money in aid of frontline NHS workers. Here was a man who personified the very best of British, selfless, stoical, steadfast. With hindsight, you can see why the nation latched on to Captain Tom. You couldn't have come up with a better symbol of British lockdown spirit if you had tried. But when Hannah ingram Moore pressed send on her email to the local press, she could hardly have imagined the perfect storm she was about to unleash. Cautionary tales will

be back in a moment. Hannah ingram Moore's press release leads to an interview on a local radio station. Donations on just giving dot Com pass the one thousand pounds target. She gets a call from a local television station. What might be a realistic new target? Hannah wanders five thousand. The local TV people are skeptical. It's a lovely story, they say, but don't get your hopes too high. The economy is ground to a halt with a lockdown. Nobody's

in the mood to spend money at the moment. The piece on local television catches the attention of national television. The BBC want to interview Tom live on their breakfast show. Hannah and the family scramble to figure out the technology. They put an old music stand in front of Tom's favorite chair and secure Hannah's phone to it with blue tag. Tom's a bit deaf and the phone speaker isn't very loud, so Hannah perches on a chair next to him to repeat what the BBC presenters say.

obvious but often wrong. The researchers tested the impact of two kinds of direct male appeal. Both male shots started with a photo of a sad looking woman and some heartrending text Sebastiana has known nothing but abject poverty her entire life. One group of donors got a male shot that went on to explain how caring people like you had helped Sebastiana to turn her life around. Her young son Aurelio runs up to hug her. She says, I

do whatever I can for my children. The other group's male shot instead talked about how rigorous scientific methodologies attested to the cost effectiveness of the charity's intervention. The result a few larger donors gave more when they received the text about rigorous scientific methodologies, but most smaller donors gave less. They weren't moved to donate by evidence that their donation would be maximally cost effective. They were moved by the

thought of a young boy hugging his mum. They gave not to do good, but to feel good. Economists call it the warm glow effect, and it surely explains why BRIT's in the Pandemic threw so much money that Captain Tom's fundraising appeal. Not many will have read up on the detail of how NHS charities together proposed to use their donation and carefully weighed up against alternative potential recipients

of their generosity. No, They wanted to see the look on the old man's face as a journalist tells him the total has blasted past another milestone. Captain Tom's fundraising made Britain feel good about itself in a difficult time. You've got a warm glow from being part of it. At the ingram Moor's House lockdown, life has gone crazy.

Tom is doing dozens of interviews a day. The local post office is groaning under the weight of hundreds of thousands of cards to congratulate Tom on his hundredth birthday. Far too many cards for the family to cope with. Volunteers at the local school put them on display. Soon they've taken over the whole school hall. Satellite broadcast vans descend on the village. Drones buzz over the ingram Moor's garden,

Cameras poke through the hedge. It's overwhelming, intrusive, exhausting. As long as the money keeps rolling in for charity, Tom and his family decide they can't possibly stop. When the day arrives for Tom to complete his one hundredth lap, Tom's old army regiment sends soldiers to line up in his garden in a guard of honor socially distanced, of course. The BBC broadcasts the event live to the nation with a reverential commentary as Tom carefully pushes his walking frame towards the camera.

from his home studio. The screen split into dozens of zoom call boxes filled with nurses from the NHS Voices of Care choir. The song went straight to number one. All proceeds went to NHS charities together feel on just giving dot com came to a close on the last day of April, Tom's one hundredth birthday. He'd raised an astonishing thirty eight point nine million pounds for NHS frontline workers.

That's about fifty million dollars. The Royal Air Force celebrated by flying two wartime planes, a hurricane and a spitfire over Tom's garden. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson announced that Tom would be knighted for his services to fundraising, becoming Captain Sir Tom. The whirlwind appeal was over. What next. Tom could, of course have chosen to withdraw from the public eye and live out his days in the privacy he had enjoyed until a few short weeks ago, But

he was now a famous, much loved figure. Captain Tom had become a powerful brand. There must be opportunities to use his public profile to do even more good. The family decided a new charity should be set up, the Captain Tom Foundation. It would raise money and make grants to causes close to Tom's heart. The family also set

up a new company and trademark, Captain Tom's name. The charity's website linked to and looked very much like an online store from which you could buy official Captain Tom t shirts a Captain Tom Rose or Captain Tom Gin that would give you a warm glow twice over from the name on the label and the booze in the bottle. If you clicked through to buy something from the online store,

the proceeds would go to the Captain Tom Foundation. Right The online store also promoted in Tom's memoir Hastily commissioned by a publishing company entitled Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day. In the prologue, Tom wrote, astonishingly, at my age with the offer to write this memoir, I've also been given the chance to raise even more money for the charitable

foundation now established in my name. That seemed pretty clear by the book, and the money would go towards the charitable foundation, or some of the money at least, wouldn't it.

Cautionary Tales will be back in a moment. In December twenty twenty, the UK had just emerged from a second lockdown, and people briefly dared to hope for a festive Christmas, But as the nights grew darker, the virus started spreading again and quickly Hesitant to impose yet another strict lockdown, the government tried a touch of social pressure, asking people to keep their celebrations short, small and local. Limit who you meet. Do you really have to travel? Just because

it's legal to do something doesn't mean it's sensible. The ingram More family meanwhile, had jetted off to Barbados courtesy of free flights from British Airways. As the mood back in the UK became grimmer, the Captain Tom Twitter account tweeted out a photo of Tom Hannah, her husband, and their two children enjoying a beautiful family day in the Barbados sunshine, it said, followed by a sunshine emoji and hashtag tomorrow will be a good day. The response on

Twitter was mixed. Enjoy every moment, said one user, read the room advised another, I've omitted the swear words. The Captain Tom brand took a bit of a dent. Some people started to mutter are the family really in this for the purest of motives? The following month, January twenty twenty one, Britain entered its third national lockdown. Tom himself caught COVID and went into hospital. Well wishes flooded in. The singer Michael Ball, for instance, tweeted love and prayers

for More and his lovely family. Stay strong, sir, But this time Tom didn't make it. He died at the start of February. Amid the tributes, some people on Twitter said unkind things about the Barbados Jolly. The broadcaster Peers Morgan led to the defense of the ingram More family. He had spoken to Hannah. They had been deeply hurt by the online trolling. Morgan said it was despicable. It should also have been a warning Captain Tom was dead. But the Captain Tom Foundation lived on with a real

chance to do good in the world. And that would mean that the Captain Tom brand would need to be looked after. But if anyone was going to understand the importance of managing public perceptions, it would be a brand marketing coach. Lucky then that this was precisely Hannah's area of expertise. By law, charities and companies must publish their accounts once a year. The first year of the Captain Tom Foundation's accounts showed it had raised over a million pounds.

It had given out some grants to good causes and spent a larger amount Tom's support costs, including tens of thousands of pounds paid to companies controlled by the ingram More family. But those were costs incurred in getting the charity up and running. It was fair enough that they'd be reimbursed. As for the company set up to own the Captain Tom trademarks, the accounts showed income of over eight hundred thousand pounds about a million dollars. Where exactly

had all that money come from? A journalist emailed Hannah to ask. She didn't reply. The muttering grew louder. Journalists asked more questions that official Captain Tom Limited Edition gin, for example, exactly how much of the purchase price went to the Captain Tom Foundation, Well, some of it, but how much the gin was quietly pulled from sale. Hannah began working as the interim CEO of the Captain Tom Foundation.

She asked for a salary of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year, but the Charity Commission, which regulates charities in England, said that was too much for the CEO of a new small foundation. Eighty five thousand pounds should be plenty. That's still more than one hundred thousand dollars and nearly three times the average wage in the UK. Still a bit disappointing. Not to worry, though, there were

other ways to make money. For example, Hannah made a deal to provide ambassador services for a media company's charity awards using Captain in Tom's name. It was later revealed the company paid twenty thousand pounds for these services, but just two thousand of that went to the Captain Tom Foundation. Eighteen thousand went to Hannah ingram Moore. Charities by law must have independent trustees who act in the charity's best interests. Both Hannah and her husband served for a time among

the trustees for the Captain Tom Foundation. But were the foundation's trustees doing a good enough job the Charity Commission started to wander They set up an inquiry. Meanwhile, Hannah and her husband submitted a planning application to put up a new building in the garden of their big house. In English villages, you can't just build anything you like on land you own. Development is strictly controlled by the local god government. The ingram Moors applied for permission to

build a Captain Tom Foundation building. It would be used for charitable purposes. How could the local bureaucrats refuse? Here's a curious thing though. When the building actually went up, neighbours noticed it was somewhat bigger than the plans for which permission had been given. Also, it contained a luxury spapool. How exactly was a spapool going to be used for

charitable purposes? Well, it had the opportunity to offer rehabilitation sessions for elderly people in the area on a once or twice per week basis, said the ingram Moors, as they appealed to the local authority to grant them retrospective planning permission for the building they'd actually built. As the negative news stories piled up in twenty twenty three, Hannah and her husband decided they should do an interview. They

turned to the broadcaster Piers Morgan. It was his donation that had kick started the initial fundraising drive in the first lockdown. He had defended them staunchly against the online trolls after Tom's death, But when they appeared on Piers Morgan uncensored, they soon discovered that Morgan wasn't going to pull his punches. It's very hard to argue that you need a spapool to pay tribute to your father. Morgan turned to the mysterious question of the eight hundred thousand pounds.

Where exactly had that come from? The Ingram Moors tried to be vague. Morgan kept pushing. This is a really unfair line of questioning, said Hannah. She demanded that the cameras be turned off. When the cameras came back on again, Morgan had evidently persuaded them to answer. Most of the money had come from the book deal. Tom's autobiography Tomorrow Will be a Good Day have become a best seller. But shouldn't some of that money have gone to the charity,

asked Morgan. No, said Hannah. It was my father's book. He wrote it. He was very clear about that. The regulator, the Charity Commission, published its investigation report in twenty twenty four. Among other things, they considered the question of Tom's book, remember what he had written in the prologue. With the offer to write this memoir, I've also been given the chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation

now established in my name. Emails from the time showed that the publishers expected some cash to go to the charity, and there was a press release too, published in support of the Captain Tom Foundation. The ingram More's argued that publication of Tom's autobiography did support the founder in the sense that it was prominently mentioned in news coverage of the book's launch that amounted to thousands of pounds worth of free advertising, promotion and media space. The Charity Commission

didn't buy it, Their report says. The inquiry formerly wrote to mister and Missus ingram Moore to provide them with an opportunity to rectify matters by making a donation to the charity. They declined to do so. The inquiry looked at the Gin and the SPA and the deal with the media company. It found that there had been repeated instances of a blurring of boundaries between private and charitable interests, and repeated instances of misconduct and or mismanagement on the

part of Hannah and her husband. The ingram wors had damaged public trust and confidence in charities generally. The broadcaster Piers Morgan tweeted his response to the report shameful. The singer Michael Ball recalled how incredibly proud he had been of his duet with Captain Tom and added to see it twisted. Really, it's a real shame. It's easy to criticize Hannah ingram Moore. Too easy, I want to suggest

another villain of this story. You and me and everyone who's ever donated to a charity without pausing to ask what evidence exists that the charity is effective and well run. Just think back to April twenty twenty, when the British public were pledging millions upon millions of pounds inspired by the sight of an elderly veteran hobbling up and down his own garden. What did most of us know about how the network of NHS charities would use the money?

Not much, and yet we gave anyway because giving felt good. No harm done. You might say, in this case, the charities probably use the money well, but the problem is the culture it creates. We give money to get a warm glow and don't give much thought to how the money will be spent. Later, when the fundraising effort moved to the brand new Captain Tom Foundation, what did we know about how this foundation would be run? Nothing? Yet

some people gave anyway because giving felt good. In his book Doing Good Better, the philosopher Will McCaskill points out that the charity world often lacks effective feedback mechanisms. Invest in a bad company and you lose mone but give money to a bad charity and you probably won't hear about its failings, which may explain why Hannah Ingram Moore didn't see a problem with her plans. Bad charities crups

on goodwill all the time. That said, there's not usually as much goodwill as there was for Captain Tom, and charities aren't usually quite as bad as the Captain Tom Foundation was. We can blame Hannah ingram More, of course, for giving in to the temptation to blur the boundaries between private and charitable interests. But if donors routinely did as much due diligence on charities as investors do on companies, that temptation might never have existed. The Captain Tom Foundation

shut up shop. The Charity Commission disqualified Hannah and her husband from running or being a trustee of any but the Ingram Wors had one last ignominy to suffer. They'd appealed to the local authority for retrospective planning permission for their SPA building. The planners said no, it would have

to be demolished. The media once again converged on the Ingram Moor's house with their cameras, this time to film an excavator knocking down a spa in the garden where Tom Moore had once inspired a nation, Now they a pile of rubble. Sometimes the metaphors right themselves. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales as written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines and Ryan Dilly. It's

produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of the Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos san Juan at Brain Audio. Thanks also to Barry Wise, who provided the pieces on piano for this episode. Bender Dafhaffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough, Sarah Jupp, massaam Monroe, Jamal Westman, and Rufus Wright.

The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show,

please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us and if you want to hear the show, add free sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus