We'll Meet Again,The Forces' Sweetheart

We'll Meet Again

“the Forces’ Sweetheart.”

It is said that 

prime minister Harold Wilson later remarked

 that it wasn't Winston Churchill who won the war

but the voice of Vera Lynn.

 

(She is typically dismissive of such praise now.)

 

We'll Meet Again, The Very Best Of Vera Lynn

"the Forces' Sweetheart".

 

Dame Vera Lynn's stunning rendition of "Land of Hope and Glory" in Holland

 

Grand Gala du Disque 1962 Holland.

Music starts at 0'52"
Dutch introduction by Willem Duys in 1991.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGQgdE50QA4 

 

 

 

 Land of Hope and Glory - Last Night of the Proms 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaUJ07ApWRE

 

 

 

Dame Vera Margaret Lynn CH DBE OStJ (née Welch; born 20 March 1917) is a British singer of traditional popular music, songwriter and actress, whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during the Second World War.

She is widely known as "the Forces' Sweetheart" for giving outdoor concerts for the troops in Egypt, India, and Burma during the war as part of Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA).

The songs most associated with her are "We'll Meet Again", "The White Cliffs of Dover", "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and "There'll Always Be an England".

 

 

Dame Vera Lyn may be receiving at least one Brit Award but she thinks youngsters fail to connect with the era when she was a star.

She remained popular after the war, appearing on radio and television in the UK and the US and recording such hits as "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" and her UK number one single "My Son, My Son". Her last single, "I Love This Land", was released to mark the end of the Falklands War.

 

Dame Vera entertaining troops and keeping their morale up during the Second World War

 

In 2009, at the age of 92, she became the oldest living female artist to top the UK Albums Chart, with compilation album We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn. Lynn also scored a number one in 2014, when she was 97, with the collection Vera Lynn: National Treasure, and remains the oldest person to top the album charts. Further, she released the compilation album of hits Vera Lynn 100 in 2017, to commemorate her centennial year, and it was a number-3 hit, making her the first centenarian performer to have an album in the charts.

 

PM Harold Wilson with Dame Vera Lynn.

 

"We'll Meet Again" (AKA: We’ll Be Together Again) is a 1939 British song made famous by singer Vera Lynn with music and lyrics composed and written by English songwriters Ross Parker and Hughie Charles. The song was published by Michael Ross Limited, whose directors included Louis Carris, Ross Parker and Norman Keen. Norman Keen, an English pianist also collaborated with Ross Parker and Hughie Charles on "We’ll Meet Again" and many other songs published by the company including "There'll Always Be an England" and "I’m In Love For The Last Time". The song is one of the most famous of the Second World War era, and resonated with soldiers going off to fight as well as their families and sweethearts

 

We'll meet again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsM_VmN6ytk 

 

 

[Verse]
We'll meet again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
'Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away

[Pre-Chorus]
So will you please say "Hello" to the folks that I know
Tell them I won't be long
They'll be happy to know that as you saw me go
I was singing this song

[Chorus]
We'll meet again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

[Verse]
We'll meet again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day
Keep smiling through
Just like you always do
'Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away
[Pre-Chorus]
So will you please say "Hello" to the folks that I know
Tell them I won't be long
They'll be happy to know that as you saw me go
I was singin' this song

[Chorus]
We'll meet again
Don't know where, don't know when
But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

 

Early life

Vera Margaret Welch was born in East Ham, now part of the London Borough of Newham, on 20 March 1917, the daughter of Bertram Samuel Welch (1883–1955) and Annie Martin (1889–1975), who had married in 1913. Her elder brother Roger Welch (4 March 1914 – 3 March 2017) also became a centenarian.

In 1919, when Lynn was two years old, she fell ill with diphtheritic croup and nearly died as a result. She was sent to an isolation unit and was discharged after three months there. As a result of her hospitalisation, she missed Christmas and celebrated both Christmas and her birthday later, in March 1920; her mother even sourced a Christmas tree for the occasion.

She began performing publicly at the age of seven and adopted her maternal grandmother Margaret Lynn's maiden name as her stage name when she was eleven. Her first radio broadcast, with the Joe Loss Orchestra, was in 1935. At this point she appeared on records released by dance bands including those of Loss and of Charlie Kunz.

 

In 1936, her first solo record was released on the Crown label, "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire". This label was absorbed by Decca Records in 1938. She supported herself by working as an administrative assistant to the head of a shipping management company in London's east end. After a short stint with Loss she stayed with Kunz for a few years during which she recorded several standard musical pieces. In 1937, she moved to the aristocrat of British dance bands, Bert Ambrose.

In 1937, Lynn made her first hit recordings, "The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot" and "Red Sails in the Sunset".

 

Lynn sings at a munitions factory in 1941

 

She is best known for her 1939 recording of the popular song "We'll Meet Again", written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles; the nostalgic lyrics ("We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day") were very popular during the war and made the song one of its emblematic hits. During the Phoney War, the Daily Express asked British servicemen to name their favourite musical performers: Vera Lynn came out on top and as a result became known as "the Forces' Sweetheart".

 

In July 1940, Lynn made her first appearance as a ‘fully fledged solo act’ in Coventry.

In 1941, during the darkest days of the Second World War, Lynn began her own radio programme,

Sincerely Yours, sending messages to British troops serving abroad. She and her quartet performed songs most requested by the soldiers. Lynn also visited hospitals to interview new mothers and send personal messages to their husbands overseas. Her other great wartime hit was "The White Cliffs of Dover", words by Nat Burton, music by Walter Kent.

 

In 1943, she appeared in the films We'll Meet Again and Rhythm Serenade. Contrary to later reports, she neither sang nor recorded "Rose of England" during this time and it was only in 1966 when her producer, David Gooch, selected it for her album More Hits of the Blitz that she became familiar with it. The album itself was a follow-up to Hits of the Blitz produced by Norman Newell.

 

During the war years, she joined ENSA and toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops.

In March 1944, she went to Shamshernagar airfield in Bengal to entertain the troops before the Battle of Kohima. Her host and lifelong friend Captain Bernard Holden recalled "her courage and her contribution to morale". In 1985, she received the Burma Star for entertaining British guerrilla units in Japanese-occupied Burma.

 

103rd Birthday

                                                                                   20 March 2020

Vera Lynn, in full Dame Vera Lynn, byname of Vera Margaret Welch, (born March 20, 1917, East Ham, Essex [now in Greater London], England), English singer whose sentimental material and wholesome stage persona endeared her to the public during World War II. Broadcasts of her songs of love and longing were particularly resonant with members of the military fighting abroad, which led to her nickname, “the Forces’ Sweetheart.” She remained popular into the 21st century.

Dame Vera Lynn uses 103rd birthday to buoy Britain

• 20 March 2020

 

Dame Vera Lynn was known as the Forces' Sweetheart during her World War Two heyday

one of Vera Lynn's most famous songs, We'll Meet Again, was released in 1939

 

Dame Vera, who lives in Ditchling, East Sussex, is best known for performing for the troops during World War Two in countries including Egypt, India and Burma.

 

Her famous songs include The White Cliffs Of Dover and There’ll Always Be An England.

“I am reminded of World War Two, when our country faced the darkest of times and yet, despite our struggles, pulled together for the common good and we faced the common threat together as a country, and as a community of countries that joined as one right across the world.”

 

Dame Vera Margaret Lynn CH DBE OStJ (née Welch; 20 March 1917 – 18 June 2020)

Death and legacy

Funeral procession

 

Lynn died from pneumonia at Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath on 18 June 2020, at the age of 103. Tributes to Lynn were led by the Royal Family, with Queen Elizabeth II sending private condolences to Lynn's family and Clarence House issuing tributes from the then Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. The then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and Leader of the Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, also led with tributes in Parliament, while musicians like Sir Paul McCartney and Katherine Jenkins and public figures like Captain Tom Moore discussed her profound impact. The Band of the Coldstream Guards convened the same day to play her song "We'll Meet Again".

 

 

Lynn was given a military funeral, which was held on 10 July 2020 in East Sussex. The procession made its way from her home in Ditchling to the Woodvale Crematorium in Brighton;  it was widely attended by the public. Ditchling was decorated with poppies, a symbol of military remembrance. Ahead of the funeral, the White Cliffs of Dover had images of Lynn projected onto them, as "We'll Meet Again" was being played across the English Channel. Her cortege was accompanied by members of the Royal Air Force, the British Army, the Royal Navy, and the Royal British Legion, as well as the Battle of Britain Spitfire flypast, which followed the cortege and passed over Ditchling three times (10 July 2020 was the 80th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Britain). Her coffin was draped in a Union Flag with a wreath. At the family service at the Woodvale Crematorium chapel, she was serenaded by a Royal Marine bugler. Her family have said a public memorial service will be organised for some time in the future.   On 21 March 2022, a thanksgiving service for Lynn was held at Westminster Abbey.

 

Following Lynn's death, Jenkins began campaigning to erect a statue of her by the White Cliffs of Dover, a reference to one of her signature songs "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover". Jenkins and Lynn's death established the Dame Vera Lynn Memorial Trust and selected sculptor Paul Day to design the memorial. In July 2022, the Dover District Council announced that Lynn's family had decided to place the memorial elsewhere, as they found the location offered "'insufficient' to honour [Lynn's] legacy".  The memorial subsequently evolved into The Forces' Sweetheart And Wartime Entertainers' Memorial, honouring Lynn and "all those unsung heroes who entertain in times of conflict". The memorial is planned for the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.