Dame Vera Lynn kept Britain smiling through WW2 – we’ll never meet such an inspiration again

FAREWELL TO AN ICON 

Dame Vera Lynn was the girl-next-door who kept Britain smiling through WW2 – we’ll never meet such an inspiration again

Dame Vera Lynn, the Forces' Sweetheart, in uniform in 1941

 

Dame Vera Margaret Lynn CH DBE OStJ (née Welch; 20 March 1917 – 18 June 2020) was an English singer and entertainer whose musical recordings and performances were very popular during World War II. She is honorifically known as the "Forces' Sweetheart", having given outdoor concerts for the troops in Egypt, India and Burma during the war as part of the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). The songs most associated with her include "We'll Meet Again",  "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover", "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and "There'll Always Be an England".

 

 

 

Dame Vera Lynn was the girl-next-door who kept Britain smiling through WW2

• thesun.co.uk/news
• Simon Cosyns, Deputy Editor

• Published: 22:54, 18 Jun 2020    Updated: 11:07, 10 Jul 2020

So when the devastating coronavirus pandemic ushered in the biggest peacetime crisis since the war, the Queen turned to the words of Dame Vera’s best-loved song.

 

“We will be with our friends again, we will be with our families again . . .  we will meet again,” Her Majesty said in a televised address to everyone separated from their loved ones by lockdown.

 

It’s a sentiment that holds firm and true, as relevant today as when 22-year-old Vera, a pin-up with flowing brown locks, first sang We’ll Meet Again to our armed services soon after the outbreak of hostilities in 1939.

 

12

Dame Vera with the Queen on the 40th Anniversary of Accession at Earl's Court

 

 

12

Dame Vera on We'll Meet Again: ‘These words spoke to the entire nation in a dark time ...the importance of hope during adversity’

 

12

The Sun's front page on the Queen’s pandemic message in April

 

12

Dame Vera Lynn's portrait beamed onto the White Cliffs of Dover to celebrate her 100th birthday 

She maintained that being called Forces’ Sweetheart was “one of her greatest achievements. I feel very honoured that people regard me in this way.”

 

Dame Vera discussed her second best-remembered song, (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover, written in the wake of the Battle of Britain in 1941.

 

 

Vera Lynn (1917-2020) sings (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover" (music by Walter Kent, lyrics by Nat Burton) accompanied by Mantovani and His Orchestra, recorded on Vera Lynn's 25th birthday, 20 March 1942, at the Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead, London.

The White Cliffs of Dover - Vera Lynn (1942)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAaxkAgVkHQ 

 

Vera Lynn sings The White Cliffs of Dover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNMW9wdorZA 

 

The White Cliffs of Dover - Lyrics - Vera Lynn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2_L5D_XBmo 

 

From July through October 1940 the Battle of Britain was fought. Britain stood alone as the RAF and RCAF fought Nazis Germany who was bombing Britain..... Most of Europe had been defeated and the USA had yet to enter the war....The White Cliffs of Dover was written by Walter Kent and Nat Burton in 1941 and it was sung by the greatl Dame Vera Lynn in 1942...... This is a shortened version of the song and the video is to commemorate the Battle of Britain

 

 

The White Cliffs of Dover

 

There'll be bluebirds over

the white cliffs of Dover,

tomorrow, just you wait and see.

 

There'll be love and laughter

and peace ever after,

tomorrow, when the world is free

 

The shepherd will tend his sheep,

the valley will bloom again,

and Jimmy will go to sleep

in his own little room again.

 

There'll be bluebirds over

the white cliffs of Dover,

tomorrow, just you wait and see

 

The shepherd will tend his sheep,

the valley will bloom again,

and Jimmy will go to sleep

in his own little room again

 

There'll be bluebirds over

The white cliffs of Dover,

tomorrow, just you wait and see

 

 

12

Dame Vera had said of her war effort: ‘I just wanted to do my bit. I never felt in danger. I had all the boys around to protect me’

 

In June 2020, we all remember the Forces’ Sweetheart and national treasure.

 

 

 

 

Great British heroes: Vera Lynn - "The Forces Sweetheart"

BHT Staff | @BHTravel_ Mar 16, 2023

 

In the bleak years of World War II, Vera Lynn’s songs captured the spirit of their times and charged the morale of British servicemen everywhere.

 

Perhaps surprisingly among the great British heroes mentioned most often by British Heritage readers has been Dame Vera Lynn. If Winston Churchill brought the bulldog tenacity to Britain during the dark years of World War II, Vera Lynn expressed the nation’s heart in song.

 

A young Big Band singer before the war, in 1940 Vera Lynn began her own radio show, Sincerely Yours. Across the pretelevision, wartime airwaves, Lynn’s broadcast went beyond British shores to the nation’s troops abroad. She sang what came to be the great “standards” of the war and sent messages to soldiers overseas connecting them to home. Lynn toured abroad and performed for troops, visited hospitals and became an icon of British morale.