Help us to remember the Forces’ Sweetheart
As Government urged to support Dame Vera Lynn statue, the Mail invites readers to a very special celebration
Aworried family are glued to the wireless, waiting for a tune or a message to lift the spirits. A group of servicemen – among them a chap in bandages, another still in his flying kit – cluster around a piano, joined by half a dozen women in uniform. They are briefly escaping the horrors of war with a sing-song.
A wartime big band is striking up a favourite dance number, while, in the distance, a column of troops are disappearing into action. The common factor which unites all these characters is the striking figure dominating the foreground of this poignant montage: Vera Lynn.
Here she is launching into the repertoire which, at one point, saw her outselling the superstars of the day, including Bing Crosby. Behind her, in the wreckage of the London Blitz, we also see a couple who encapsulate the spirit of her most famous song of all: we’ll Meet Again. in short, here stands a stirring monument to the power of music in adversity.
So the Mail is very proud to offer this first glimpse of the completed memorial to a woman who captured the essence of what her generation were fighting for.
Twice life-size, Vera has been beautifully immortalised by the celebrated British sculptor Paul day, a past master at working parallel narratives into a single epic piece.
This one is now taking shape in bronze at a specialist foundry in the Czech republic and will be completed by the summer. Twelve feet across, it will be more than a celebration of a great artist. it will also be a homage to the entire wartime generation. Hence the inclusion of the troops, whom Vera always called her ‘boys’; of the wives and mothers who ‘kept the home fires burning’; of the children who might never get to know their father; of the wAAFs, wrens, ATC, Land Army girls and all the other servicewomen who were determined to ‘do their bit’; of the destruction around them all.
The level of detail is astounding, as i discover while visiting day’s studio in Burgundy to see how this has all come about. The entire piece is composed in a circular style known as a ‘tondo’ (after ‘ rotondo’ paintings of the renaissance).
‘A circular format seemed the best way of describing someone who is best known for her records,’ explains day. Look closely, and you will even spot a copy of a decca disc of we’ll Meet Again.
examine the servicemen around the piano and one of them looks very familiar. The face is actually that of the late Conservative politician Sir david Amess. This is day’s personal tribute to the Tory MP murdered in 2021 who was the original driving force behind this memorial.
The little dog in the family scene is modelled on digby, the Jack russell of Vera’s daughter, Virginia. elsewhere, one of the saxophone players is a dead ringer for day’s own grandfather.
Three years in the making, the memorial has involved meticulous research. The family scene, for example, was inspired by Vera’s wartime radio show, Sincerely Yours, during which she would read out letters from families to loved ones who were serving overseas.
This was actually taken off the air after the disastrous fall of Singapore to imperial Japan, in 1942, on the grounds that it was too ‘sentimental’. in another section, we see soldiers heading off to battle. Their slouch hats show that these are men of the ‘Forgotten Army’, fighting the Japanese in the Far east.
‘Vera never forgot them and went out to sing to them,’ says day. ‘ in fact, there is one account of her singing so close to the front line that the Japanese could actually hear her.’
The statue depicts Vera in her youthful prime. ‘i wanted to show her at the very peak of her career – in her twenties,’ says day, standing alongside some of his earlier studies which have led up to the creation of the main piece.
in later life – as dame Vera – she went on to devote herself both to charity work and to the veterans. To them, she was always the ‘Forces’ Sweetheart’ and the feeling was always entirely mutual.
Following the 75th anniversary celebrations of Ve day in 2020, Vera made recording history as the oldest artist to enter the album charts – at the age of 103. That same year, her most famous single also entered the charts – 81 years after its first release.
This late rejuvenation of her career was a direct result of the late Queen’s historic address in April 2020 to a locked- down nation in the darkest days of another national crisis – Covid. Her Majesty, famously, concluded by echoing Vera’s most famous line as she signed off: ‘we will meet again.’ A few
Power of music in adversity
months after that great accolade, on June 18, 2020, Vera died at her home in East Sussex. Whereupon a group of her greatest fans, led by Sir David Amess, launched a campaign to commemorate her and all that she stood for. Sir David secured an adjournment debate in the Commons on the subject, while the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson let it be known he was fully behind the idea.
Day was swiftly consulted and commissioned. Millions already enjoy his work every year. Visitors to London cannot alight from an international train at St Pancras without seeing his 30ft statue of an embracing couple, called The Meeting Place. Others know him for the Battle of Britain Monument by the Thames, a study in urgency, fear and grit as 3D figures leap out of bronze panelling.
Dame Vera was a great fan of that monument, as was Queen Elizabeth II, who invited Day to Buckingham Palace. And when Her Majesty met Day again at the unveiling of his Queen Mother Memorial in The Mall, she was reduced to tears.
Day’s studio and gallery, which he shares with his wife, the painter Catherine Day, regularly attract international collectors to this corner of France. Star Trek actor William Shatner turned up with his family the other day. The nearby five- star Chateau Sainte Sabine has three of Day’s largerthan-life bronze cattle in front of it. In other words, Vera Lynn is in good company.
However, the campaign to get this memorial finished has been beset with problems and also tragedy. In 2021, it lost its prime mover when Sir David was murdered by a terrorist.
Then the original plan for the memorial was scuppered. The idea was for a monument to be the centrepiece of a new park in Dover, not far from the White Cliffs immortalised in another of Vera’s anthems (‘There’ll be bluebirds over…’). However, the park plan was dropped when it failed to secure the requisite ‘levelling-up’ funding from Whitehall. So the family and the memorial trustees have since decided that the Vera Lynn monument should stand at the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) in Staffordshire, where it will serve as a tribute to all wartime entertainers.
Along the way, the fundraising process has proved much harder than expected in the present economic climate. The trustees were greatly cheered by a substantial six-figure donation from a generous admirer of Sir David Amess as well as the generosity of numerous Daily Mail readers. However, this great endeavour is still going to require at least another £1million to get the show on the road.
And that is where you come in. For, next month, on April 19, a great gala evening is being planned at London’s Connaught Rooms to rally the troops – and Mail readers are cordially invited to join Dame Vera’s family and friends. As well as dinner and dancing (and, doubtless, a singsong or two), guests will be entertained by The D-Day Darlings, Colin Thackery, the chart-topping Chelsea Pensioner, and Dame Vera’s friend, singer Vicki Lee, who will reprise her greatest hits.
With my fellow royal biographer and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth as compere, it will be a night of shameless nostalgia with an important auction, too. Lord [Jeffrey] Archer will be in charge as some of Dame Vera’s most prized possessions go under the hammer in aid of the statue appeal. They include her gold disc for her Forces’ Sweetheart album, along with some of her dresses. Also on offer will be Paul Day’s maquette (model) of the memorial plus paintings by the war artist Michael Italiaander and a VIP day out at the All England Showjumping Course at Hickstead, near Dame Vera’s Sussex home.
Until the remaining funds are raised, however, the memorial will not be able to leave the foundry.
Immense contribution to this country
Dover MP Natalie Elphicke, a Vera Lynn fan, has also written to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt seeking assistance. She points out that his recent Budget decision to award £1million for a memorial to Islamic soldiers signals a clear change in Government policy as, previously, taxpayers’ money was not available for memorials.
‘I am totally supportive of the new monument,’ she tells me, ‘so surely the same should apply to Dame Vera. She made an immense contribution to this country and the fact remains that there are very few statues to women of substantial achievement.’
The Chancellor has yet to reply. In the meantime, start getting dressed for a great night out on April 19.
For tickets at £125 a head or £ 1,100 for a table of ten, call 020- 3488 6713 or email: amy@ ourlegend.com To donate: www.dameveralynnmemorialstatue.co.uk or cheques payable to: Dame Vera Lynn Memorial Statue, c/o The Treasurer, “Dormers”, Main Road, Brighstone, Isle of Wight. PO30 4AJ