Notes from the Sofa Raymond Briggs
The great Dame Vera Lynn is 100 years old!
How does anyone cope with that? As well as being a genuine, legendary National Treasure? In the war she entered into the consciousness of us all, even kids like me: five when the war began, ten when it ended.
She was not one of the pin-ups I had stuck to the ‘ceiling’ inside my Morrison shelter; they were the usual saucy girlies, all legs and bosoms. Why on earth I was interested in them when I was under ten, I cannot imagine. Maybe I was an up and coming sex maniac? If so, I’ve certainly grown out of it now. Officially retired sex maniac.
No, Dame Vera was in another class altogether. Dignified, but warm and friendly as well.
My Dad always pronounced her name as VERRA Lynn, instead of VEERA Lynn. One of his odd pronunciations; another was when emptying the bowl of washingup water and finding, as we all do, the inevitable one remaining teaspoon, he would say, ‘There it is - the ine-vit-able.’ I still call it the ine-vit-able today. But I don’t say VERRA. We had speech lessons at school. Not only that, but she might overhear me, as she lives just down the road from here. Not sure how good your hearing is when you are 100; mine has faded somewhat and I am still only a sprightly 83.
Now, there is the wonderful, extraordinary oddity that in 2009 she had a bestseller, hit record in her NINETIES! No other performer has ever done anything remotely like it. Then, in 2017, another album was released in honour of her 100th birthday.
Talking of oddities, there are always so many that you begin to wonder if they are odd at all. A lot of them are connected with food. I was reminded of this yesterday when I bought a packet of spaghetti Bolognese. ‘NEW FLAVOUR’, proclaimed the label. Bologna! We all used to go there every year, first week in April, for the Children’s Book Fair. The publishers paid for their most prestigious authors, such as me, to go – air fares, hotels, restaurants, everything. Just imagine that happening today!
I remember thinking, ‘Oh good, I’ll have spaghetti Bolognese in Bologna itself! Find out what it should really be like. Authentic, the birthplace of this world-famous dish!’
Get there, order it and the waiter has to put his hand over his mouth to smother his laughter. You cannot buy spaghetti Bolognese in Bologna. There is no such thing. It does not exist!
Someone said that the Eyeties had invented spaghetti to make fools of the Brits; they don’t eat it themselves. But they do – I’ve seen elderly Italian gents expertly spinning it round on the end of their fork to make a blob of it small enough to get into their mouth. I certainly can’t do that. I resort to knife and fork, cutting it into bits. Sacrilege.
Another food oddity is marmalade. All through the national press recently are reports of the younger generation not eating marmalade! What on earth are they eating instead? Surely not cheese like those frightful Continental foreigners? Whenever I am forced, reluctantly, to go abroad, I have to pack a jar of marmalade in my luggage. One day the lid will come off, all in the midst of my nice clean shirts.
I would love to know what Dame Vera thinks of marmalade. She can’t possibly have got through the war without it, except for her four months in the Burma Campaign, perhaps. Just can’t imagine marmalade in Burma.