WWII Forces' Sweetheart Vera Lynn's face to be projected onto White Cliffs of Dover

Blackleaf

Blackleaf

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Two great British icons are to unite tomorrow as Dame Vera Lynn's face is projected onto the White Cliffs of Dover to mark her 100th birthday.

Dame Vera's wartime classic, The White Cliffs of Dover, gave hope to British troops in action missing Blighty.

Now she will be honoured at the very location that formed the basis of her song.

The occasion also marks the release of her new album Vera Lynn 100. Its release makes Vera the only 100-year-old artist to release an album.

Face of forces' wartime sweetheart Vera Lynn is to be projected on to the White Cliffs of Dover to mark her 100th birthday

The White Cliffs of Dover songbird is to be honoured on her 100th birthday
Dame Vera Lynn lifted the spirits of thousands of Allied troops during WWII
Her image will be projected on to the cliffs as part of her centenary celebrations
The date also marks the release of her new album which looks set to be a success

By Rod Ardehali For Mailonline
19 March 2017

Vera Lynn, the British songbird whose voice lifted the spirits of thousands of British soldiers during the Second World War, is to have her image projected on to the White Cliffs of Dover to mark her 100th birthday tomorrow.

Dame Vera's wartime classic, The White Cliffs of Dover, gave hope to British troops in action missing Blighty.

Now she will be honoured at the very location that formed the basis of her song.


Wartime songbird Dame Vera Lynn is to be honoured at the White Cliffs of Dover to mark her 100th birthday. The event will also mark the release of her new album, Vera Lynn 100

The occasion also marks the release of her new album Vera Lynn 100.

Should it go to number one in the charts it will beat her own record she set aged 92.

Its release will make Dame Vera the only 100-year-old artist to release an album.

'It's truly humbling that people still enjoy these songs from so many years ago, reliving the emotions of that time.

'I was after all just doing my job as a singer and it's so wonderful for me to hear my songs again so beautifully presented in a new way,' Dame Vera told the Sunday Express.

Poignantly, the record is to be released on Decca Records, the same label she released her first album with, aged 22.


Poignantly, the record is to be released on Decca Records, the same label she originally released her first album with aged 22. Dame Vera is to become the only artist in history to release an album aged 100


Dame Vera was last year made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by the Queen

Born in East Ham, London, on 20th March 1917, Dame Vera became a popular radio star in the 1930s, having started performing aged seven as a dancer.

A BBC documentary Dame Vera Lynn: Happy 100th Birthday saw the songbird discussing her wartime efforts, performing for troops regularly.

Following the war, Dame Vera was awared with the British War Medal 1939-1945 as well as the Burma Star for her efforts.


Dame Vera entertained Our Boys during World War II


The new album was released on Friday

Read more: Dame Vera Lynn to be honoured at the White Cliffs of Dover | Daily Mail Online
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C

Curious Cdn

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My wife saw her sing in Hyde Park during the 50th anniversary of (D-Day? ... VE day?)
 
Blackleaf

Blackleaf

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Curious Cdn said:
There were a million people there that day, she sez. She's a Vera Lynn fan.
Click to expand...

I think that performance was her last public performance to date.

She's a British national hero.

Not only did she keep the morale up of the millions of young men risking their lives in defending Europe from evil, but she's also done a lot of work for charity in the years since. She set up a cerebral palsy charity, named SOS, in 1953. She's recently been campaigning against pigeon racing.

She was made an OBE in 1969 for her services to the RAF Association and other charities. She was made an honorary citizen of Nashville in 1977. She's also received the Freedom of the City of London; made a Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau; made an Officer of the Order of Saint John; and she's had a street in Forest Gate, London, and a steam locomotive on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway named after her. Oh, and she's received the Burma Star for entertaining British troops in Japanese-occupied Burma. In 2000, she was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the 20th Century.

Pink Floyd - "Vera" (1979; Vocalist and bassist Roger Waters lost his father in the war)

 
C

Curious Cdn

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Blackleaf said:
I think that performance was her last public performance to date.

She's a British national hero.

Not only did she keep the morale up of the millions of young men risking their lives in defending Europe from evil, but she's also done a lot of work for charity in the years since. She set up a cerebral palsy charity, named SOS, in 1953. She's recently been campaigning against pigeon racing.

She was made an OBE in 1969 for her services to the RAF Association and other charities. She was made an honorary citizen of Nashville in 1977. She's also received the Freedom of the City of London; made a Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau; made an Officer of the Order of Saint John; and she's had a street in Forest Gate, London, and a steam locomotive on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway named after her. Oh, and she's received the Burma Star for entertaining British troops in Japanese-occupied Burma. In 2000, she was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the 20th Century.

Pink Floyd - "Vera" (1979; Vocalist and bassist Roger Waters lost his father in the war)

Click to expand...
My father was a WWII RCAF pilot that spent almost of the war in the Far East but did find himself in the UK from time to time flying a bit from there, too. I know that he was at Bournemouth long enough to fire up a romance with an RN Wren, whom, he/we found out 50 years later was a cypher clerk at Bletchley Park. Anyway, he was also a fan.

ps Dad also had the Burma Star ... pinned on him by Mountbatten at Kogala.
 
Blackleaf

Blackleaf

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Curious Cdn said:
My father was a WWII RCAF pilot that spent almost of the war in the Far East but did find himself in the UK from time to time flying a bit from there, too. I know that he was at Bournemouth long enough to fire up a romance with an RN Wren, whom, he/we found out 50 years later was a cypher clerk at Bletchley Park. Anyway, he was also a fan.

ps Dad also had the Burma Star ... pinned on him by Mountbatten at Kogala.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a film could be made of your dad during the war.

Dame Vera Lynn: The Forces' Sweetheart turns 100

20 March 2017
BBC News

As Dame Vera Lynn turns 100, BBC News looks back at the life of the Forces' Sweetheart.


Vera Welch was born on 20 March 1917 in East Ham, now part of east London. Neither of her parents were involved in showbusiness - her father Bertram was a plumber and mother Annie a dressmaker. But by the age of seven, the talented young Vera was singing in working men's clubs - an audience she described as "great" - and soon became the family's main breadwinner.

When she turned 11, Vera took her grandmother's maiden name of Lynn as a stage name. She had no formal singing lessons as a child - and just one as an adult. She said: "I thought I could extend my range but when the teacher heard me sing she said 'I cannot train that voice. It’s not a natural voice.' So I said: 'Well, thank you very much, madam', and left."


Vera was talent spotted aged 15 while singing at the Poplar Baths by local band leader Howard Baker. He signed her up on the spot. In 1936, when she was 19, she had her first solo record - called Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire. By the age of 22 she had sold more than a million records and bought her parents a house and herself a car.


However, it was during World War Two that her reputation was made. She frequently sang to the troops at morale-boosting concerts, becoming known to posterity as The Forces' Sweetheart.


One of her most famous songs, We'll Meet Again, was released in 1939 and as war progressed it increasingly resonated with the British public. As Vera said: "It’s a good song as it goes with anyone anywhere saying goodbye to someone."


Her popularity was such that she was voted the British Expeditionary Forces' favourite singer, beating Bing Crosby - with whom she's pictured - and Judy Garland. She travelled across the world to entertain troops, including to Burma, India and Egypt. She later recalled staying in grass huts and using a bucket of water for a shower.


In 1941 Vera had married Harry Lewis. They had one daughter, Virginia, and lived together in Ditchling, East Sussex, for 58 years until his death in 1999.

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the BBC Variety Department broadcast a victory programme on VE Day in May 1945. Vera was joined there by entertainers and returned British Prisoners of War. Her popularity survived the war years and after peace came she toured all over the Commonwealth, appeared in a Las Vegas cabaret, and performed for the British Royal Family.


She was appointed OBE in 1969, made a Dame in 1975, and a Companion of Honour in 2016. Her wartime fame meant she was never far from the television screens, appearing on The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show in 1972 and being the subject for This is Your Life in both 1957 and 1978.


She made the acquaintance of glam rock band Slade in 1973, when they gathered round a piano at the Melody Maker Awards. In March 2017 she released her latest album, and holds the record for being the oldest living artist to achieve a top 20 UK album.


Dame Vera helped mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in a ceremony on 10 August 2010. Her daughter says fan letters still arrive from all over the world, sometimes simply addressed to "Vera Lynn, UK."


As she turns 100, Dame Vera says she finds it "humbling" people still enjoy her songs. As The Queen wrote to her: "You cheered and uplifted us all in the War and after the War, and I am sure that this evening the blue birds of Dover will be flying over to wish you a happy anniversary, Elizabeth R."


Dame Vera said it was "an unprecedented honour to have my birthday marked in such a beautiful way" as her portrait is projected onto the White Cliffs of Dover.

Dame Vera Lynn: The Forces' Sweetheart turns 100 - BBC News
 
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Blackleaf

Blackleaf

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"Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire" - The title of that song is the British expression which parents have traditionally used for decades to tell their children to go upstairs to bed.
 
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