Some sunny day... MPs back Vera memorial

A CAMPAIGN to fund a memorial to honour Dame Vera Lynn has won support from more than 70 MPs from across the Commons who have written to Rishi Sunak seeking public funding.

Among them are Harriett Baldwin, Treasury committee chairman, former deputy prime minister Damian Green, and senior Tory figures Sir Graham Brady and Sir John Redwood.

Health minister Maria Caulfield and Labour’s Rosie Duffield has also given her support for a memorial to Dame Vera and other wartime entertainers at the National Arboretum in Staffordshire.

Fans of the late singer, dubbed the Forces’ Sweetheart, need to raise more than £1million to realise their vision of a sculpture at the site, which is home to the Armed Forces Memorial. In their letter to the Prime Minister, they praise Dame Vera as a ‘Great Briton’, not only for supporting morale with her songs but also for her lifetime of charity work for veterans, children with disabilities and for breast cancer research. And they cite the need to commemorate her ‘unshakeable duty to country at a time of national peril’.

A fundraising gala evening, compered by Giles Brandreth, will be held at London’s Connaught Rooms on April 1 .

Mail readers have been offered a special deal on tickets until Friday April 5, at a price of £125 per person or £1,100 for a table of ten. To book, 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.

‘Unshakeable duty to country’