Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

British singer who charmed armed forces in WWII

- By Danica Kirka

LONDON — Dame Vera Lynn, the endearingl­y popular “Forces’ Sweetheart” who serenaded British troops during World War II, died Thursday at 103.

During the war and long after, Lynn got crowds singing, smiling and crying with sentimenta­l favorites such as “We’ll Meet Again,” and “The White Cliffs of Dover.”

“The family are deeply saddened to announce the passing of one of Britain’s best-loved entertaine­rs at the age of 103,″ her family said in a statement. “Dame Vera Lynn, who lived in Ditchling, East Sussex, passed away earlier today, 18 June 2020, surrounded by her close family.”

Lynn possessed a down-toearth appeal, reminding servicemen of the wives and sweetheart­s they left behind when they went off to war.

“I was somebody that they could associate with,” she once told The Associated Press. “I was an ordinary girl.”

Tributes poured in from political leaders, entertaine­rs, veterans and thousands of fans.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said her “charm and magical voice entranced and uplifted our country in some of our darkest hours. Her voice will live on to lift the hearts of generation­s to come.″

Lynn hosted a wildly popular BBC radio show during the war called “Sincerely Yours” in which she sent messages to British troops abroad and performed the songs they requested. The half-hour program came on during the highly coveted slot following the Sunday night news.

“Winston Churchill was my opening act,” she once said.

But Lynn once thought the war would doom her chance of success.

“When war first started, when it was declared, I thought, ‘Well, there goes my career.’ You know, I shall finish up in a factory or the army or somewhere,” she recalled. “You imagined all the theaters closing down, which didn’t happen except when the sirens sounded. And everybody, if they wanted to, they could stay in the theater and the show would go on.”

In September 2009, long after her retirement, Lynn topped the British album chart with a hits collection titled “We’ll Meet Again — The Very Best of Vera Lynn.” It reached No. 1, despite competitio­n from the release of remastered Beatles’ albums.

Amid this year’s coronaviru­s outbreak, Lynn and opera singer Katherine Jenkins released a charity version of “We’ll Meet Again.” Once again the public found comfort in her words of hope, which resonated in the locked-down country.

In a reflection of her enduring appeal, Queen Elizabeth II also invoked the words of Lynn’s signature song as she addressed the nation in lockdown. The monarch, who served as an ambulance driver during the war, played on the song’s theme, promising loved ones would be reunited in the end after being separated by the virus.

“We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return,” the queen said. “We will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again.”

Lynn earned her nickname, “The Forces’ Sweetheart,” after being ranked No. 1 in a 1939 Daily Express poll that asked servicemen to name their favorite musical artists. Years later, she reflected on time spent with soldiers abroad.

“What they needed was a contact from home,” she said. “I entertaine­d audiences from 2,000 to 6,000. And the boys would just come out of the jungle and sit there for hours waiting until we arrived and then slip back in once we’d left.”

A plumber’s daughter, Vera Margaret Welch was born on March 20, 1917, in London’s blue-collar East Ham neighborho­od.

She took her stage name from her grandmothe­r’s maiden name. She started singing in social clubs at age 7 and dropped out of school by 11 when she started touring with a traveling variety show. By 17, she was a band singer, and at 21 — when the war started — she was a known performer.

She married band musician Harry Lewis in 1941, and he went on to manage her career. They had one daughter, Virginia.

Lynn appeared in a handful of films: “We’ll Meet Again” (1942), playing a young dancer who discovers her singing voice; “Rhythm Serenade” (1943), in which she played a woman who joins the Women’s Royal Navy and organizes a nursery in a munitions factory; and “One Exciting Night” (1944), a comedy about a singer who is mistakenly caught up in a kidnapping.

While Lynn is best remembered for her work during the war, she also had success during the post-war years. Her “Auf Wiedersehe­n, Sweetheart” in 1952 became the first record by an English artist to top the American Billboard charts, staying there for nine weeks.

 ??  ?? Dame Lynn in 1999
Dame Lynn in 1999

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