But he added, “I don’t remember getting scared at the time.”
Mr. Moore returned home after the war and built a comfortable life as manager of a concrete company. He remained energetic until his late 90s, mowing the lawn, tending a greenhouse and driving his own car. But two years ago, he fell in his kitchen, breaking his hip and a rib and puncturing a lung.
His hospitalization gave him a lasting appreciation for the doctors and nurses of the National Health Service. With the service struggling with an influx of coronavirus patients last spring, raising money for the beleaguered personnel seemed a worthy cause.
“Never in 100 years when we started did we expect this amount of money to be raised,” said Mr Moore.
Some of the money he has raised will be used to create therapeutic facilities where doctors and nurses can relax after work treating Covid patients. Mr Moore said he saw his fundraising as a way to support health workers, just as he remembered the British backing him and his fellow soldiers during the war.
“At the time, people my age fought on the front lines and the general public was behind us,” said Mr. Moore. “In this case, the doctors and nurses and all the medical people are the front line. It’s up to my generation to back it up just as we were backed up. “
Even after turning 100, Mr. Moore had not lost his sense of adventure. In addition to Barbados, he expressed a wish to return to India.
“That’s something I’d love to do, but at 100,” he said businesslike, “you’ve got a set time limit.”