At Christmas, I always think of ‘the boys’

At 100, Vera Lynn has written a book about entertaining the troops in Burma during the war. She sings ‘Silent Night’ to York Membery

It’s been quite a year for Dame Vera Lynn, the original Forces’ Sweetheart, who turned 100 in 2017. Her landmark birthday, on 20th March, was celebrated in style. A tribute concert – attended in a private capacity by the Queen – was staged in her honour at the London Palladium. Her image was projected on to the White Cliffs of Dover – immortalised in her wartime hit. In September, she helped rescue the cliffs, when she backed a successful National Trust campaign to raise £1 million to save them from development.

To cap it all, her latest album, Vera Lynn 100 (on which her original vocals and fresh recordings by guest stars such as Alfie Boe have been added to newly orchestrated tracks), has sold more than 100,000 copies, making her the bestselling female artist of the year.

‘Yes, I don’t know how that came about,’ laughs Dame Vera. ‘It’s been a very special year for me in so many ways, and I got lots of chocolates and flowers – a huge bouquet from Elton John and some from Paul Mccartney, too – for my birthday,’ she recalls. ‘There were so many flowers, the house looked like a florist!’ Now, with the festive season upon us, Dame Vera has invited The Oldie – the only publication granted such an honour – down to her handsome detached home in Sussex to discuss her centenary year, her new book about entertaining the ‘Forgotten’ 14th Army in Burma in 1944, and Christmas.

‘I’ve always loved Christmas time,’ the singer – born Vera Welch in London’s East End in 1917 – tells me over a cup of tea, as a log fire blazes away in her living room, which looks out onto the large back garden. The room is dotted with photographs of her late musician husband, Harry, whom she married in 1941, and of Vera with friends, including the Queen Mother. A 6ft-tall Christmas tree stands in one corner of the room, and freshly cut holly is draped around the mirrors and paintings.

‘We’ve dug out all the old decorations that have been on the tree for donkey’s years!’ laughs Dame Vera.

The living room is inundated with a sea of Christmas cards. ‘They’re from all over the world: from Britain, Australia, the Netherlands… and even Germany, where I had a couple of hits,’ says Vera, dressed in a flowery blouse, green cardigan, beige slacks and slippers.

The war might have ended more than seventy years ago, but Dame Vera can still recall those far-off wartime Christmases as if they were yesterday.

‘Back then, people would save up their rations – fruit and so on – months in advance, to make sure they had enough to make a Christmas cake and a pudding because everything was in such scarce supply. It was so different to nowadays,’ she says. ‘Mind you, we always had a turkey, roast potatoes and parsnips, as Keep smiling through: Vera Lynn with ‘the boys’ in Burma, 1944

well as a Christmas tree. I remember one year, before I was married, buying a tree with my brother and dragging it all the way home through the streets to our home in East Ham.’

Despite everyone on the Home Front doing their best to make Christmas Day as normal as possible – when the bombs were raining down and U-boats were trying to starve Britain into submission – the war was never far away.

‘Once the sun went down, we still had to draw our blackout curtains,’ continues Vera. ‘Chaps used to go around the streets on Christmas Day, just like they did on every other day [during the war], to make sure everyone had their blackout curtains pulled over. If they weren’t, they’d shout, “Put out that light!” ’

Presents were more modest during the war, too. ‘We’d give each other small gifts, like a pretty scarf or hankies,’ says