The remarkable autobiography of the last great wartime icon.Born Vera Welch on 20 March, 1917 in the East End of London, Dame Vera Lynn’s career was set from an early age – along with her father, who also did a ‘turn’, she sang in Working Men’s Clubs from just seven years old. She had a successful radio career with Joe Loss and Charlie Kunz in the 1920s and ‘30s, but it was with World War II that she became the iconic figure that captured the imagination of the national public.Her spirit and verve, along with her ability to connect with the men fighting for their country and those left behind praying for their loved ones, made her the ‘Forces’ sweetheart’. Performing the songs that she will always be associated with, such as ‘We’ll Meet Again’ and ‘Yours’, Vera toured Egypt, India and Burma to entertain the troops and bring them a sense of ‘back home’.Her career after the war flourished, with hits in the US and the UK, but Vera was never able to leave behind her wartime role and was deeply affected by what she had seen. Still heavily involved with veteran and other charities, this is Dame Vera’s vivid story of her life and her war – from bombs and rations to dance halls and the searing heat of her appearances abroad. Epitomising British fortitude and hope, Dame Vera gives a vivid portrait of Britain at war, and a unique story of one woman who came to symbolize a nation.
Оглавление
Dame Vera Lynn. Some Sunny Day
Copyright
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE Overture & Beginnings
CHAPTER TWO One-&-six for an Encore
CHAPTER THREE Vocal Chorus
CHAPTER FOUR A Taste of Ambrosia
CHAPTER FIVE Wild About Harry
CHAPTER SIX A Country at War
CHAPTER SEVEN Sincerely Yours
CHAPTER EIGHT Off to see the Burma Boys
CHAPTER NINE A Journey with a Legacy
CHAPTER TEN A House is a Home
CHAPTER ELEVEN After the Interval
CHAPTER TWELVE Not My Style
BBC STILL BEING DIFFICULT
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Round & About
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Everybody’s Talking
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Never Quite Retired
Index
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To my wonderful Harry, with whom I was so fortunate
to share my life for all those years.
.....
I was certainly never hungry. My mother was a plain cook but a good cook. Most women were in those days. There wasn’t all the fancy cooking that we do today. It was basic. We had a roast every Sunday—Mother used to make very good Yorkshire pudding—and then the cold meat on the Monday. And we always had two different sorts of potatoes: roast and boiled. I was thinking about that the other day when I was peeling potatoes: that at home on Sundays there was always a choice. They don’t do that nowadays, do they? You get either boiled or roast, but not both. Funny how things change.
All this time, of course, I was at school, and although the work I did in the clubs was mostly at weekends, the two things still managed to clash—sometimes in unexpected ways. At my junior school in Central Park Road I once asked if I could borrow a copy of the sheet music of ‘Your Land and My Land’, and when I told the teacher what I wanted it for she said, ‘Oh, you sing, do you?’ Obviously she remembered, because one morning at assembly not long after that I was suddenly called on to sing this song. I was petrified, and I had every reason to be, for as I’ve mentioned, my voice was of a rather unorthodox pitch for a little girl, so when the school played it from the original song copy, it was in completely the wrong key for me. It was a terrible mess, and although it wasn’t my fault I was crimson with shame. They must have thought, Good God! How can this child go on stage and sing!
