Dame Vera Lynn: Forces’ Sweetheart was ultimate Briton – The Yorkshire Post says

IT is a measure of the public’s enduring love for Dame Vera Lynn, who has died at the age of 103, that this great icon of wartime Britain came to be revered as much as Winston Churchill.
Dame Vera Lynn was the Forces' Sweetheart in the Second World War.Dame Vera Lynn was the Forces' Sweetheart in the Second World War.
Dame Vera Lynn was the Forces' Sweetheart in the Second World War.

Handed a prime-time 9pm radio show in 1941, often going on air immediately after the PM addressed the nation, she once jested: “Churchill was my opening act.”

Yet, in some respects, Churchill was the warm-up act for this mesmerising entertainer daughter of a dock worker whose songs of hope lifted the nation’s spirits. She was the Forces’ Sweetheart and became a sweetheart to all.

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Not even Dame Vera expected to become such a phenomenon. “There goes entertainment and my career with it,” she remarked at the outset of the Second World War.

Dame Vera Lynn has died at the age of 103.Dame Vera Lynn has died at the age of 103.
Dame Vera Lynn has died at the age of 103.

And how poignant that the enduring words of her most famous song, We’ll Meet Again, should be used by the Queen to galvanise this country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I support her message of keeping strong together when we’re faced with such a terrible challenge. Our nation has faced some dark times over the years, but we always overcome,” said Dame Vera who also took part in a recent collaboration of We’ll Meet Again to raise money for NHS charities.

The personification of the Blitz Spirit, Dame Vera touched the hearts of the world with her brave visit to Burma in 1944, and arduous trips to the battlefields of the Far East after VE Day the following year.

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But her magical voice and iconic resonance never left her. She was just as popular in her latter years as a fundraiser and campaigner on behalf of ex-service personnel – her bond with them, her boys as she called them, unbreakable.

Dame Vera Lynn in more recent years. She has died at the age of 103.Dame Vera Lynn in more recent years. She has died at the age of 103.
Dame Vera Lynn in more recent years. She has died at the age of 103.

One of the country’s last links to the Second World War, the one comfort is that Dame Vera’s voice will still resonate, inspire and endure “until we’ll meet again some sunny day”. 

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

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And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor

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