Her last emotional interview — for the Mail
RIGHT to the end she was lifting our spirits through music. Just as she raised the morale of our troops in the Second World War with her concerts, so Dame Vera Lynn countered the isolation of lockdown with song.
I was the last journalist to interview her, early in April, soon after the nation was shuttered against the global pandemic, and even then – just weeks after her 103rd birthday – she was buoyant.
Although physically frail and suffering from arthritis, her mind was still sharp as a tack and her interest in the world around her undimmed.
She was still signing the photographs fans, in their droves, were requesting; still checking each letter written by her PA before it was dispatched. She had, according to her daughter Virginia, even just written a new song.
So music remained at the centre of Dame Vera’s life. Encouraging us all to join her in a chorus of her iconic wartime hit We’ll Meet Again to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day in May, she was ‘tickled’ that the song, which first reached No 1 in 1939, had surged up the charts again, though admitted she was bemused by the new rush of attention.
The Queen had made reference to it in a rare public address the previous week, quoting its title to give us hope of post-lockdown reunions with our loved ones.
‘I had no idea she’d use those immortal words We’ll Meet Again in her address and I thought it was absolutely wonderful!’ Dame Vera told me.
‘It was a lovely thing for the Queen to do. Perfect for the situation we’re in now.’
And so, as the nation slowly opens up again, it has proved.
Dame Vera had an unfailing belief in the positive power of song. ‘Music binds people together; it’s good for the soul and in these hard times we must all help each other find moments of joy,’ she told me from the home in Ditchling, East Sussex she shared with Virginia, 74, Virginia’s husband Tom and two live-in carers.
We spoke, too, about her long association with the Queen, with whom she had a warm affiliation stretching back almost 80 years: Dame Vera sang We’ll Meet Again at Her Majesty’s 16th birthday party in 1942.
By then Vera had been dubbed the Forces’ Sweetheart after the song became an anthem for all those separated by the conflict.
LIKE many in late life, she had acute recall of the past, remembering clearly how she spent VE day in 1945: ‘I was with my parents and grandmother in our garden in Barking [east London].
‘We were listening to the wireless when it was announced and we sat in the sun thinking, “What wonderful news!” We were thrilled; euphoric.
‘I don’t think we shed a tear. You did that privately. It was a time when people didn’t show their emotions. You just got on with life.
‘We didn’t go in for huge celebrations then, either. It was an age of austerity and restraint.
‘We had a cup of tea; later a little glass of sherry. It was a lovely day and we raised a toast with our neighbours across the garden fence.’
And just as Dame Vera predicted, we too have been sustained, in no small part, by comradeship, neighbourliness – and the enduring power of music.