SINGING CENTENARIAN
THE WARTIME LEGEND IS DELIGHTED WITH THE NEW VERSIONS OF HER BELOVED SONGS
Dame Vera turns 100
Dame Vera Lynn has never been content with the ordinary. Since being dubbed “The Forces’ Sweetheart” for her dedication to singing to the troops on the front line of World War II, the singer has occupied a place in the hearts of an entire generation.
So it’s only fitting that at the grand age of 100, Vera is about to set a new world record for the oldest person to release a new album.
Her 23rd record, VeraLynn 100 – which features some of her greatest hits including We’llMeetAgain and Auf Wiederseh’nSweetheart– hit stores last week, just days before she celebrated her centenary on March 20.
“It’s truly humbling that people still enjoy these songs from so many years ago, reliving the emotions of that time – and it’s so wonderful for me to hear my songs again so beautifully presented in a completely new way.”
At 100, Vera is still in good health, though. “I feel old in body but young in spirit.”
The songbird celebrated her special day with a concert in her honour in London and a tea party at home with her nearest and dearest.
But despite her long list of accolades and awards, the humble girl from Essex still maintains the highest honour ever bestowed on her remains being named
“The Forces’ Sweetheart” after risking her life to travel to far-flung, war-torn places to lift the soldiers’ morale.
“The appreciation that I received from the boys just for being there has stayed with me for the rest of my life,” she tells. “I was just doing my job, but it meant a great deal to them that I’d travelled so far to sing a few songs.”
Born in 1917 as Vera Margaret Welch, she began performing publicly at the tender age of seven, taking her mother’s maiden name of Lynn as a stage name when she was 11 and giving up school so she could tour.
She recorded her first album in 1936, but just as her star was beginning to rise, war once again broke out.
“I thought, ‘That’s the end of my career,’” she says. “But you see, it proved that entertaining in the theatres and wherever was absolutely vital, really, to keep spirits up.”
Vera acted as a fire warden during the Blitz and hosted her own radio show, Sincerely Yours, where she would read out messages from soldiers’ families. However, the plucky singer was determined to do her bit on the front line and travelled to entertain the soldiers in all corners of the globe, including the jungles of Burma, often at a tremendous personal risk.
Such was her popularity, Welsh comedian Harry Seacombe quipped, “It wasn’t Churchill who beat the Nazis – it was Vera Lynn who sang them to death.”
She remembers her fourmonth trip to Burma vividly. “I went with a bag slung over my shoulders. That was it. Make-up was no good – it would run. All I had was a lipstick.
“I lived the same as they did, in their little grass huts… I had a pianist with me; we moved around in a little army van thing with a piano in it and rather ancient microphone equipment. I reminded them of their sisters, their sweethearts and their wives they left behind, and what they were fighting for.”
Post-war, Vera became the first English singer to top the US charts with crowd favourite AufWiederseh’n Sweetheart, and she remained one of Britain’s most popular singers and personalities.
Her husband Harry Lewis, whom Vera married in 1941, returned safely from the war and the couple had one daughter, Virginia Lewis-Jones.
Harry passed away in 1998, but her daughter remains in awe of her famous mother.
“Mummy was a brave, resolute woman and when she set her mind to do something,
‘ I was just doing my job, but it meant a great deal to them that I’d travelled so far to sing a few songs’
jolly well went ahead and did it,” Virginia tells. “She is frail of course, but that’s just due to her age – her mind is as sound as ever. She wears the same shade of Estée Lauder coral lipstick she always did and refuses to meet anyone until she has applied it. If I get to her age with even half as much of her zest for life, I’ll be very happy.”
And zest Vera has. She makes no apologies of her distaste for modern music – she can’t quite believe such a thing as autotune exists – and is often baffled by the state of the world when she turns on her TV.
But Vera thinks nostalgia has never been more popular – and she’s only too happy to oblige. “They were good times in a way because people were working together,” she says. “They were living, hoping together and striving to be cheerful when things were down. Everybody worked and helped each other. I think a lot of people are still trying to live that way.”