Dame Vera brought song of hope during dark days of war
A look back at the life of forces sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn who has died aged 103
FORCES sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn stirred the hearts of millions with songs and a personality that brought hope and inspiration during the darkest days of the Second World War.
Decades later her name endures as a figure who played a huge role in keeping up the spirits of a civilian population suffering under the Blitz and the troops training at home and fighting overseas.
As a young woman in her early 20s, she travelled thousands of miles, often at great personal risk, to entertain the troops and to comfort them with words of hope.
In particular she visited the “Forgotten Fourteenth Army”, which was still fighting the bitter Burma campaign after VE Day.
Dame Vera, who died aged 103, eschewed glamour and the pampered life. She was as much a humanitarian as an entertainer and everybody loved her.
Her work did not end when the war was over – throughout her life, she remained an indefatigable and outspoken supporter of military veterans, through to their old age.
Her songs inspired a spirit of optimism and she spent her career fostering nostalgia which, during the war, was just what people felt they needed.
More recently, her words became a source of comfort to many during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a televised address to the nation, the Queen channelled Dame Vera’s lyrics when she told people separated from their loved ones: “We’ll meet again.”
Dame Vera said she had been stirred by the Queen’s words, telling the Radio Times: “Our nation has faced some dark times over the years, but we always overcome.”
Last month Dame Vera also became the oldest artist to reach the top 40 in the UK album charts. A collection of her greatest hits reached number 30 in the Official Charts Company rankings following the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of VE Day.
Dame Vera supported many charities and was a stalwart of several exservicemen’s organisations.
In 1991 she played a key part in forcing the government to end the anomaly under which a war widow who lost her husband after 1973 received a far higher pension than a widow of a soldier who died before that date.
She was also a proud holder of the Burma Star and regularly attended the Burma veterans’ annual reunions.
She was outspoken in her opposition to the Duke of Edinburgh attending the funeral of the Japanese emperor Hirohito. She felt it was wrong that Philip should go since he was president of the Burma Star Association and the nephew of Earl Mountbatten of Burma. She urged that a younger member of the royal family represent the Queen to fulfil protocol.
Until 1944, Vera Lynn remained mostly in London but then she made her famous tour of Burma to entertain the troops.
Still only 24, she was stirred into action when she learned that few entertainers went to Burma, where the men of the Fourteenth had called themselves the Forgotten Army.
Her four-month tour started in a Sunderland flying boat. She transferred to smaller and smaller aircraft until she ended up on the road from Rangoon to Mandalay in a battered car.
Describing the experience later, she said it was “the trip of a lifetime” and the smell that haunted her most was the gangrene pervading the field hospitals where she spent hours talking with soldiers.
In all, she flew 25,000 miles during that time and through her songs and talking to the men about home she persuaded them they were not forgotten.
In honour of her contribution she was awarded the Burma Star in 1985.
Vera Lynn was born in London on March 20, 1917, the daughter of Bertram and Annie Welch, in East Ham where her father was a plumber on the docks.
She was a schoolgirl of seven at Brampton Road School, East Ham, when she made her performing debut at an East End working men’s club.
Two years later she joined a juvenile troupe and by 1932, at just 15, she was running her own dancing school.
From 1935 she was singing on radio with the famous Joe Loss band and then in 1937 she started to sing with the Ambrose Orchestra, which played in West End nightclubs like the Cafe Royal and the Mayfair.
She remained with Ambrose until 1940.
She was 21 at the outbreak of war and her career was just starting to flower, having already appeared on early, experimental television with Ambrose. In addition, she was doing regular radio broadcasts.
She recounted many years later that on the outbreak of war “one of my first thoughts was, ‘There goes entertainment and my career with it”’.
“It seemed to me then that entertainment would be the last thing people were going to worry about once the bombs started falling, but it turned out not to be the case at all.”
Within days she was busier than ever and in 1940 she went solo.
The following year she married Harry Lewis, a clarinet and saxophone player with the Squadronaires. He became her manager and they remained devoted to each other.
She had already been awarded the title Forces Sweetheart in 1939 following a Daily Express poll among its readers when the Army went to France at the beginning of the war.
The competition included Judy Garland, Dinah Shore and Deanna Durbin who were all from the United States, which at that time was neutral.
Vera Lynn was the overwhelming choice, helped by her new but catchy and sentimental song she had begun singing that year, We’ll Meet Again.
She was quoted as saying: “My songs reminded the boys of what they were really fighting for, precious personal things, rather than ideologies and theories.”