Captain Sir Tom Moore won the hearts of the British nation when he decided, aged 99, to walk 100 laps of his garden to help the NHS.

The 100-year-old, who used to be based at Bovington, raised more than £32m for the NHS at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Capt Moore served in the second world war, after being selected for officer training in 1940 and completing postings in India and Sumatra.

He returned to work as an instructor at an armoured fighting vehicle school in Bovington.

In 2007, Captain Tom visited the Tank Museum in Dorset in 2007 to donate some of his papers and photographs, which museum staff said were very gratefully received.

Speaking last April when Captain Tom turned 100, Bournemouth East MP and former Green Jacket Tobias Ellwood said: “He binds the nation with that generation that we looked upon and pay tribute to when our country was last having to adopt a national war effort.”

Sir Tom was born in Keighley, West Yorkshire, on April 30 1920.

He attended Keighley Grammar School and later completed an apprenticeship as a civil engineer before joining the Army.

He enlisted into the eighth battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (8 DWR), an infantry unit that was converted to operate Churchill tanks as part of the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC).

In 1940, he was selected for officer training and rose to the rank of captain, later being posted to 9 DWR in India.

He served and fought in the Arakan in western Burma, since renamed Rakhine State, and went with his regiment to Sumatra after the Japanese surrender.

After the war, he returned to the UK and worked as an instructor at the Armoured Fighting Vehicle School in Bovington.

He lived in Kent for many years before moving to Bedfordshire to be with his family in 2007.