The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Dame Vera meets boys again at 100
Music: Film documents life of Forces’ Sweetheart
Dame Vera Lynn praises the soldiers who kept her safe while she sang in Burma during World War II, in a programme celebrating her 100th birthday.
The “Forces’ Sweetheart” will tell the documentary on BBC2 tonight about the stories behind her rise to global fame, including her posting with the Entertainments National Service Association in 1944.
Remembering the moment she woke up to find four Japanese fighters prowling outside her hut, she said: “I always knew I was being very well looked after, the boys never leftmy side.”
Dame Vera, who turns 100 on Monday, also recounts the night British soldiers rushed to hold her piano together when it fell apart mid-performancefollowing a bumpy drive through the jungle.
But in today’s programme she admits that, when she signed up for the position to help boost troops’ morale, the heat was one aspect she did not fully think through.
“Trying to put make-up on was my first mistake,” she says, “and I shouldn’t have got a perm.”
Presented by Katie Derham, the programme takes viewers through Dame Vera’s journey fromsinging in working men’s clubs in London from the age of seven, to hosting her own radio show SincerelyYours, where she passed messages between soldiers fighting overseas with their families at home.
She continued to sing andappearontelevision after her return from Burma, eventually becoming the first British artist to make number one in America.
Her 2009 compilation We’ll Meet Again, which shares its name with one of her biggest global hits, made her the oldest living artist to top the UK album charts.
Stars such as Miriam Margolyes, Barry HumphriesandSirPaulMcCartney also speak about the renowned singer’s influence, along with war veterans who met her in the field.
One explained how he took a dangerous two-hour trip through the Burmese jungle to meet her, while another described hearing her sing as “the best bottle of medicine”.
She never had professional musical training and viewers will learn how the early days of her career saw her spend “hours leafing through sheet music” in London’s Denmark Street to find the songs she wanted to perform.
“I always looked at the lyrics first because I thought they were more important, and if I liked them then I would look at the tune,” she says.