VERA LYNN

(20 March 1917 - 18 June 2020)

Apart from just being famous as the Forces’ Sweetheart during World War II - when she gave morale-boosting concerts at home and on tour to military camps overseas - Dame Vera Lynn, who has died at the age of 103, was also immensely popular through her recordings, radio and television appearances and, indeed, a few feature films. Her recording of the song ‘We’ll Meet Again’ became her signature tune, along with many other favourites such as ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’, ‘Auf Wiederseh’n, Sweetheart’ and ‘There’ll Always Be an England’ which all offered the right emotional charge for wartime members of the forces and also for those at home awaiting their return. Born Vera Margaret Welch in East Ham, London, she was a performer from the age of seven. At 18 she sang with the Joe Loss Band and made records with Loss and Charlie Kunz and later the Bert Ambrose Band. She joined Ensa and toured Egypt, India and Burma in wartime concerts for the troops. Vera Lynn’s first appearance on film was as an extra in A Fire Has Been Arranged, a comedy with Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen in 1935, but during the war she was in We’ll Meet Again, set during the Blitz, with Geraldo and Patricia Roc. Then she played a teacher in Rhythm Serenade, with Peter Murray-Hill, and a budding singer in One Exciting Night. Her films regularly appear on the Talking Pictures TV channel. In 1962 she played herself in Venus fra Vestǿ, based on Jerrard Tickell’s book about a Danish island community whose prize cow is threatened with abduction by the Nazis. A version of the same story, Appointment with Venus, had been filmed in the UK in 1951 with David Niven and Glynis Johns. She also sang in A Gift for Love in 1963. She made best-selling records from 1952 and later had several series of her own TV show. She recorded constantly right into her nineties and in 1992 was the oldest living artist to have a number one hit album. A dame from 1975, she appeared every year at the British Legion’s Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall and was a constant supporter of charities such as The Stars Organisation for Spastics, The Charity Breast Cancer Research Trust, The Trust for Children with Cerebral Palsy, The Dover War Memorial Project and many others. She received several honours including the OBE, the War Medal, the Burma Star and the Order of Companions of Honour. Dame Vera Lynn was married to the musician Harry Lewis, who died in 1998. They have a daughter, Virginia.

MICHAEL DARVELL