Patrick Bade
Vera Lynn: The Forces Sweetheart
Patrick Bade - Vera Lynn: The Forces Sweetheart
- ♪ When two lovers meet in Mayfair ♪ ♪ So the legends tell ♪ ♪ Songbirds sing ♪ ♪ Winter turns to spring ♪ ♪ Every winding street in Mayfair ♪ ♪ Falls beneath the spell ♪ ♪ I know such enchantment can be ♪ ♪ ‘Cause it happened one evening to me ♪ ♪ That certain night ♪ ♪ The night we met ♪ ♪ There was magic abroad in the air ♪ ♪ There were angels dining at the Ritz ♪ ♪ And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square ♪
- So that was the voice of Vera Lynn. It’s a very pleasant voice and it’s distinctive. Once heard, you always recognise. It’s got that strange little catch in it, and she was a delightful singer, very musical. It’s always bang in the middle of the note. She phrases nicely. She has good diction. And I would say her greatest quality was sincerity. That it’s something that really can’t be faked, and she would… It doesn’t matter how banal or sentimental words were, she always sounded as though she really meant them. So this adds up, of course, to a very attractive singer. But I wouldn’t be talking about her to you this afternoon if it were not for Adolf Hitler. Well, actually, I wouldn’t be talking to you at all this afternoon if it were not for Adolf Hitler 'cause my parents would never have met without him. I think I’ve mentioned this before. This was just such a huge movement of peoples caused by the Second World War. My parents came from different parts of England and different social backgrounds. There was absolutely no way that they would ever met if they had not been both been members of the armed forces. And it is a, my guess is, there is probably nobody listening to me today whose life was not impacted, in some way, by Adolf Hitler in the Second World War. And it’s an extraordinary thought that this man that we hate, we loathe, we despise him. I think, who would disagree with the statement that he was the most evil and destructive human being that’s ever walked the earth.
The other thing about him is that he himself was so banal. I think about of Hannah Arendt saying, talking about “The Banality of Evil.” I mean, when you see Hitler, I mean, what is this about his supposed charisma? I just see Charlie Chaplin caricature. I cannot see the, and he wasn’t very good at what he did. I mean, thank goodness for that. He wasn’t a very good wartime leader and certainly wasn’t a brilliant military leaders. And yet, he is the man who has affected us more than anybody else in the 20th century. So back to Vera Lynn. She was a talented, but rather ordinary young woman who had greatness thrust upon her and she rose to the occasion. And she started off her career singing for various military bands, jazz bands, rather. I’ll come to that in a minute, actually. Oh, here, this is my father on the right-hand side who, as I mentioned, met my mother as a result of the war. They actually met in Palestine, of all places. And because he and I have a German name, sometimes people say to me, “Oh, which side did your father fight on?” He would’ve been absolutely horrified at the suggestion that he would’ve fought for anything other than the British. He was a professional soldier. He joined the British Army in 1936, so, well, before the war. And he fought on many fronts in Norway, and then in North Africa with the Eighth Army.
And then in Italy, was briefly taken prisoner and escaped. Then he was in the Middle East where he met my mother, and then he landed up in India. And for some reason, I’m not quite sure why. For a while, he was in the desert in, what was in Persia, now, Iran. And I only really got to know him well right at the end of his life. But he talked constantly, constantly about the Second World War. I think as with so many people who survived the war, it was the most intense and the most vivid portion of their lives. I think his wife got a bit bored with it. She’d heard the story so many times. I loved it. It was fascinating for me. And one of the stories he told that impressed me very much was being in a foxhole in the desert in Iran and not knowing that there was anybody near him. There was not another human being, not a structure, nothing to be seen as far as the eye could see. And then suddenly, wafting across the desert air, he heard this voice.
♪ There’ll be bluebirds over ♪ ♪ The white cliffs of Dover ♪ ♪ Tomorrow, just you wait and see ♪ ♪ I’ll never forget the people I met ♪ ♪ Braving those angry skies ♪ ♪ I remember well as the shadows fell ♪ ♪ The light of hope in their eyes ♪ ♪ And though I’m far away ♪ ♪ I still can hear them say ♪ ♪ Thumbs up ♪ ♪ For when the dawn comes up ♪ ♪ There’ll be bluebirds over ♪ ♪ The white cliffs of Dover ♪
So that was, I think, one of the most intense and moving memories he retained from the Second World War. Of course, the voice came was being from a gramophone record, playing, laid on a little windup gramophone like the one you see on the left. I had one of those when I was a child, and it was in another foxhole nearby. These gramophone records were a precious resource during Second World War. The shellac, the material that they were made with was in very short supply. And certainly, the Germans, wherever they went, they looted as many of these records as they could find. And this is actually an image of German soldiers on the eastern front with records that they’ve looted from Russians. She was born into a very humble background, Thackeray Road, in East Ham. That’s to the east of the East End of London. So she wasn’t born into grinding poverty or into a slum or anything like that. Just a very simple working class area of London. Though I did actually today, check house prices. If you want one of these houses in the road where she was born. It would cost you half a million pounds today. I’m sure that would really amaze her and her parents. Her father was a plumber. And I think she had a happy, happy background. Her mother was obviously the ruling force in the family. She had a pushy mother, rather as Noel Coward did, as I described last week.
And I don’t think she was personally very ambitious. It was certainly in the initial stages of her career, it was her mother who pushed her on and got her to audition. She had a chequered start. She was rejected by Henry Hall at the BBC. She was taken up for a week by Billy Cotton, who then dropped her. And then she worked for Charlie Kunz. And she really came into her own with Bert Ambrose, which was probably the most sophisticated dance band in England between the wars. I did talk about him briefly, interesting character. His father was a very poor Jewish rag-and-bone man in Warsaw. So some quite something for Ambrose, whose orchestra was a resident orchestra in the smartest hotels in London. And it was while she was working for Ambrose in her late teens, that she met the man who would become her husband. And this is Harry Lewis on the left-hand side. This is her wedding day. As you can see, both her, her fiance, her husband, and her brother, her brother, Roger, they’re both in uniform. So this is after the start of the war. And he came from a working class Jewish background. She said that, I mean, neither family were at all religious.
And she said her mother objected to him because he was a musician. She didn’t want her daughter, even though she was a singer, to marry a musician to uncertain fate. But she said there was, which she grew up in the East End, she felt that there was no antisemitism around her. And her family mingled very freely with their Jewish neighbours. And as it was, it lasted a very long time, this marriage, until, you can see this picture dated 1994. They had one daughter. He later became her agent. And it’s very obvious from her autobiography that it was an extremely happy marriage. So the Second World War breaks out, as you know, in August 1939. It was a joke a year or so later, that it had all been started by Vera Lynn’s agent, 'cause it certainly did extraordinary things for her career. And we can, in a way, follow the progress of the war through the recordings that she made. So one of the early recordings she made is the song, “Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye.” And this was the song, this was the song of the “Phoney War,” what we call the “Phoney War.” The French called . August 39 to May 40, when nothing really much happened. The British Expeditionary Force was sent off to France. Actually, this song was composed before the outbreak of war but it became the song of that moment. And it was actually not as Vera Lynn recorded it, I’m going to play it to you, but it was never a song that was particularly regarded as her song. It was more associated with Gracie Fields, who made the most popular version of the song.
And the other thing, which I think is quite interesting about this song, as I said, it was composed actually before the outbreak of war. And it also seems like a throwback to the songs of the First World War, which were all incredibly upbeat and chirpy and cheerful as we shall see that the songs that really hit the spot in the Second World War and that we remember from the Second World War are not mostly chirpy and cheerful. They’re mostly quite sentimental songs, and they’re mostly songs about the separation of loved ones. But here is Vera Lynn singing Gracie Fields’ popular hit, “Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye.”
♪ Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye ♪ ♪ Cheerio, here I go on my way ♪ ♪ Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye ♪ ♪ With a cheer, not a tear, make it gay ♪ ♪ Give me a smile ♪ ♪ I can keep all the while ♪ ♪ In my heart while I’m away ♪ ♪ Till we meet once again you and I ♪ ♪ Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye ♪
As I’ve stressed before in other lectures too, the Second World War brought about this extraordinary movement and displacement of peoples even before the war, of course, with the kindertransport. The tens of thousands of children who were taken from Germany or occupied countries for their safety and separated from their families. I’m sure you’re very familiar with or the stories of many of these people. We probably have some kindertransport children listening in tonight. And then, there was also the fear when the war finally did broke up that the big cities would be quickly destroyed. This was actually, as far as Britain was concerned, this was partly down to a popular film that came out in 1936 called “Things to Come” based on the futuristic novel of H. G. Wells. And in that film, London is completely obliterated in bombing raids and people really thought that this was going to happen. And this led to the evacuation of children from the big cities of England. Also, well, can you imagine? It’s unimaginable really, isn’t it? The trauma of the kindertransport children. So much worse for them, ‘cause they were leaving behind not just their parents and their family and they didn’t know what would happen to them, but they arrived in a country where they didn’t even speak the language. But it was quite bad enough, I think, for the kids of the East End of London going out into the countryside. And I think, for many, it was a pretty terrible experience. And so my next song with Vera Lynn is a song which is really about that. It’s meant to be comforting song to children who are separated from their parents and their families.
♪ Goodnight, children, everywhere ♪ ♪ Your Mummy thinks of you tonight ♪ ♪ Lay your head upon your pillow ♪ ♪ Don’t be a kid or a weeping willow ♪ ♪ Close your eyes and say a prayer ♪ ♪ And surely you can find a kiss to spare ♪ ♪ Tho’ you are far away ♪ ♪ She’s with you night and day ♪ ♪ Goodnight, children, everywhere ♪
Then the Blitz really did happen. London was not totally, totally destroyed, but it was quite bad enough. It started in September 1940, and continued for eight months. London was bombed every single night for eight months, from September 1940 to May 1941. 30,000 Londoners were killed by German bombs in the Second World War. And so for, Vera Lynn was one of those people who stayed in London and who continued to work, singing in theatres, singing over the radio, and making records. Records were, as I said, very, very important. And she gives an extraordinary description of one day after a particularly terrible nighttime raid. And she had to get from her house in the East of London to a recording studio in Hampstead, which, theoretically, meant going through the city of London. And finding herself constantly blocked by streets full of rubble and burning houses, and there was smoke and dust all around her. And she eventually arrived at the recording studio with only minutes left of the time to make a few records, choked with smoke and in a state of near hysteria. And she made a couple of records, just stood in front of the microphone, sang, the records were made. And the extraordinary thing is that, later in life, she couldn’t actually remember which those recordings were. I mean, she must have, there was no clue in the way she sang that she just been through this ordeal. Of course, one of the great slogans, people mock it today, of course, but it was a big slogan at the time, it was, “Keep calm and carry on.” Now and here you can see a milkman here. He’s definitely keeping calm and carrying on, delivering his milk despite the chaos of the bombing raid. And so this song, which actually she sang in the first of her movies, which I’ll come to in a minute, is in the movie, she is in a cinema and she’s trapped by a bombing raid overnight. And so she gets up on the stage and she sings this song.
♪ When all the skies are grey and it’s a rainy day ♪ ♪ Think of the birdies in spring ♪ ♪ When you’re up to your neck in hot water ♪ ♪ Be like the kettle and sing ♪ ♪ Tell that umbrella man he’s just an also ran ♪ ♪ Think of a kid on a swing ♪ ♪ When you’re up to your neck in hot water ♪ ♪ Be like the kettle and sing ♪ ♪ You’ll find that ♪
So her records were played quite a lot by the BBC. And then in 1941, there was a poll taken of all of serving men, army, navy, whatever, around the world who was their favourite singer. And the surprise winner was Vera Lynn. And it’s from that point that she earned the nickname, the “Forces’ Sweetheart.” And so the BBC decided to give her own radio programme. It was half an hour, once a week. It was a request programme and soldiers could ask for records to be played and messages would be read out between the soldiers and their loved ones back in England. So this is actually the introduction from one of those programmes. ♪ Wish me ♪
[Vera] Dear boys, I’ve been working in the West End all this week and using the Tubes and buses a lot. I realised how well some of the girls are doing your job ♪ And they will go ♪ while you’re away. Goodnight, boys. ♪ Dreamin’ ♪ Sincerely yours, Vera Lynn. ♪ We’ll meet again ♪
This shows you how important radio was. I mean, it’s, of course, a very recent invention. Marconi invented radio at the end of the 1890s. The commercial radio stations like the BBC, all dated from the early 1920s. So when the war broke out, there were less than 20 years old. And this map, all this little red dots shows you where there are commercial radio stations broadcasting all over Europe during the Second World War. And it was, I’ve already said how mediocre, in many ways, Hitler was. But one person, who was not mediocre, who really was a genius in a totally evil way was Goebbels. And Goebbels immediately understood the importance and the value of radio as a key weapon of the Second World War. But the British were pretty good and they caught up pretty quickly as well. So here, here we’ve got French people listening to the, I think a lot of people in the Second World War spent a lot of time glued to their radio sets. And in occupied Europe, of course, that was often in secrets, in attics, ‘cause they weren’t supposed to have them. The Germans tried to confiscate them or replace them. Like there’s this guy here. He’s listening to a German radio set what was called a Volksempfänger. And these were sets that could only be tuned into radio stations that were friendly to the Nazis. I’m going to move on here.
Now, these programmes, which were, the title of the programme was “Sincerely Yours,” were hugely, hugely popular. They were great success, but they were not welcomed or liked by everybody. There were people in the BBC and people in the government, who didn’t like the fact that the songs she sang were mostly rather sad and sentimental songs. I mean, there were people who thought, “You know, this is not what we want. We want more military, we want more robust songs. We don’t want soldiers crying. We don’t want soldiers to be homesick.” So it was a very, very big controversy at the time and the programme was taken off for several months. But luckily, I think people all 'round came to their senses and I think they eventually realised that there was no way they could fight this. And this is what people wanted, and actually it was good for the war effort. Now, every nation involved in the Second World War had a song that was the song of the war for them. I can remember having a discussion with some colleagues in, when I was still working at Christie’s, and there was a young German man and there was an American woman, and we were talking about this. And so I said, “What’s the sound of the Second World War for you?” And the girl, the American girl said, “Oh, it’s "Moonlight Serenade.” It’s Glenn Miller. I mean, inevitably, he said, “Oh, it’s ,” which I will play you a little bit of shortly.
And there was an English person as well, and she said, “Oh, well, for us, of course, it must be 'We’ll Meet Again.’” And when I was writing my book about music in the Second World War, it occurred to me that “We’ll Meet Again,” and have almost identical texts. In each case, the lovers are parted, they’re dreaming of meeting again. But there’s a real sense, I think in both songs. Yes, we’ll meet again, but it may not necessarily be in this world. It might be in the next world. There’s that sense about it. So they’re both really quite sad songs, but this is for the English people of a certain age listening today. This will be for them. This is the song of the Second World War and you can only really hear this song, I think sung by Vera Lynn.
♪ Let’s say goodbye with a smile, dear ♪ ♪ Just for a while, dear ♪ ♪ We must part ♪ ♪ Don’t let this parting upset you ♪ ♪ I’ll not forget you ♪ ♪ Sweetheart ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ 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 chase those dark clouds far away ♪ ♪ And I will just say hello ♪ ♪ To the folks that you know ♪ ♪ Tell them you won’t be long ♪ ♪ They’ll be happy to know ♪ ♪ That as I saw you go ♪ ♪ You were singing this song ♪ ♪ We’ll meet again ♪ ♪ Don’t know where ♪ ♪ Don’t know when ♪ ♪ But I know we’ll meet again some sunny day ♪ ♪ And I will just say hello ♪ ♪ To the folks that you know ♪ ♪ Tell them you won’t be long ♪ ♪ They’ll be happy to know ♪ ♪ That as I saw you go ♪ ♪ You were singing this song ♪ ♪ We’ll meet again ♪ ♪ Don’t know where ♪ ♪ Don’t know when ♪ ♪ But I know we’ll meet again ♪ ♪ Some sunny day ♪
It was a little bit different in France, there was still the theme of separation. Of course, after the defeat of France in 1940, most of the French army was landed up in prison camps in Germany or in Poland. And also, there was the separation between the occupied France and the so-called . So families were divided. So it’s still a very, very big theme of separation and the popular songs of the period, express this, “Loin De Toi,” far from you. “J'ecrirai,” I will write to you. But probably the song in France that was the equivalent of “We’ll Meet Again” was “J'attendrai.” And it’s so interesting how songs in this period changed their meaning as a result of political events. “J'attendrai” actually started out, or as an Italian song “Tornerai,” “You’ll Come Back,” which was introduced to France by a singer called Rina Ketty. But once the war broke out and once France was divided and people were separated, this song, again, took on enormous meaning and pathos. And it’s a bit different from “We’ll Meet Again” or , because those two songs are so associated with one particular singer where as you can see, lots of different French singers, Tino Rosi, and so on. Recorded, “J'attendrai,” but my own personal favourite is Jean. And for me, he’s my absolute favourite popular male singer of all time. I think the absolute epitome of French elegance and suavity.
As you can see, I’ve written a fan letter. And he sent me this nice signed card back again. So here is, I thought it’d be interesting for you to hear some comparisons. The equivalent songs to “We’ll Meet Again” in other countries. So here is Jean Sablon in “J'attendrai.” This is how Zarah Leander looked when she sang, in the film, the “Die grosse Liebe,” “The Great Love” that came out in 1942. And the story of this song is absolutely extraordinary. As I said, for the Germans, for most German people, it became the song of the war, song of longing and nostalgia. But as Zarah Leander explained later in life, it was a song that had very different meanings for different people. And the guy who wrote the words, I’m just trying to remember what his name was, Bruno, Bruno, come to me in a minute. He was actually, he wrote the words of this song when he was actually in a concentration camp. And he was there because he was homosexual and it was Zarah Leander and the filmmakers, they got him out. They they said to the Nazi authorities, “We need him for this film,” 'cause he writes great text for songs, and so he was released. But he actually written this poem while in the camp, and , it means, “I know that one day a miracle will happen.” And for him, the miracle was that he would be released from the camp, that he would survive, and that he would be reunited with his male lover. And there is also an amazing twist to this story. 'Cause in this scene from the film, I think I’ve told you this story before or something. You will know it, it’s a very famous story.
Here is Zarah Leander who was a big woman. She was beautiful, but she was tall and statuesque and they had this huge chorus behind her of angels and they couldn’t find enough women who were sufficiently tall. So all those people you can see behind her are actually men in drag and they’re Hitlers’ personal bodyguard, all got dressed up as angels to stand behind. And you see closeups in the movies, some of them are pretty scary looking angels. So here is . It’s much more, how can I put it? It’s very over the top, really, when it’s huge chorus. “We’ll Meet Again,” as I said, even though the words are so similar, it’s much more intimate and not quite so overblown sounding as . Now both “We’ll Meet Again” and we’re used as the climax of movies that were meant to be morale-boosting movies for each side. “Die grosse Liebe” was filmed in 1942 and released in 1942. So it was actually made and released before the turning point in the Second World War, which came, as you know, of course, at the end of 1942, beginning of 1943 with Stalingrad and El Alamein. But “Die grosse Liebe” was shown all over occupied Europe. It was actually the most watched movie, the biggest, most successful movie in Europe during the Second World War. This is the Rex Cinema on the right-hand side in Paris, which you can see was turned over to the German military.
And it was shown in that cinema. And it’s a very, very, it’s worth watching. I mean, some of it is unconsciously very funny. You sort of feel you’ve straight into springtime for Hitler at certain points. But its production values are extraordinary. And remember, of course, that Hollywood had, got most of its technical know-how from the German industry that the UFA studios in Europe, well, by far, the most sophisticated, technically, movie studios in Europe, probably in the world really. And even after all that talent had gone to Hollywood, the technical side of the German films was way, way, way ahead of the Brits. So this film came out in 1942, 1943, Vera Lynn stars in a film called “We’ll Meet Again,” after the song. And here you can see that film being made and it’s quite interesting really to compare the two movies, see one after the other. And you’ll see that the British movie is really downright, it’s very home-spun. It’s charming, and it’s a delightful movie, but it’s or almost amateur compared with the lushness and sophistication of the German movie industry at the time. And of course they, Zarah Leander, super, super glam. You know, she was… Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo wrapped up in one for the German film audiences. Very, very beautiful woman.
This amazing face that seemed to be made for closeups, you know, with a tear slowly running down her cheek. So, you know, toothy, home-spun, friendly, Vera Lynn is a very different appeal. She’s the girl next door. She’s not a kind of vamp beauty. And here are the records of the two songs on, as I said, on Shellac. So 1944, Vera Lynn decides that she will go on a morale-boosting trip to, she goes to the Middle East and the far east, ending up in Burma, right on the front against the Japanese in Burma. So this was a big deal for a girl, still in, by this point, she’s still in her early 20s. She’d only left Britain once, I think, she go to Holland. And she’d never been on an aeroplane. And all this is described in her autobiography entitled “Some Sunny Day,” which I recommend. It’s a well-written book, totally believable, and I dunno whether she had help writing it or not, but it’s her voice. You feel that she’s really speaking to you in that book. And she describes the incredible discomfort and danger, too, of much of this trip, especially when she got as far as Burma. And she talks about the endless tummy upsets that seemed to be inevitable part of going anywhere east of Dagenham, and singing under all kind of conditions of weather and so on. Here she is. I’m not quite sure where this is, either India or Burma, to small groups and big groups. And she also felt she, that a very big part of her job was going to hospitals, and she would spend hours and hours, you know, going to every single ward of the hospital and talking individually to the men and answering all their questions about how life was back home and so on. So this was a huge thing.
And… Here she is in a improvised hospital in Burman talking to wounded men. So at the end of the war, she retired for a while to have her daughter and… But she remained popular with the British public and even had quite a bit of success on the other side of the Atlantic in America. And like many people who lived through the Second World War, I think she always felt that it was, in a way, the high point of her life. And of course, everything afterwards in a way, was an anti-climax. And in her autobiography she says, “Sometimes I think I never got quite over that period. Burma, in particular, was a strange and wonderful experience that has lived with me for the rest of my life.” But as I said earlier, she rose to the occasion, and she never let herself or her public down. I like to make a little, you know, another person, who you could say, “Rose to the occasion” was Rudy Giuliani, who achieved a certain greatness as mayor of New York in 9/11. But, you know, boy, has he ever kind of spoiled his image. And Vera Lynn never did, she always made, remained a woman of enormous dignity and probity. And she morphed from popular entertainer into national treasure, and a kind of living icon, much favoured, of course, by the royal family. Here she is with her husband, Harry. She moves with the Queen Mother and then with the Queen herself. I think she was quite a regular guest, and more recently. Of course, he is still very welcome with the royal family.
And she lived to the great age of 103. When she was in her 90s, she published this book, “Some Sunny Day,” which I recommend to you. It became a bestseller. And also when she was in her mid 90s, she wanted to remain above politics. But when the British National Party used her record of “The White Cliffs Of Dover” in a racist propaganda against immigrants and immigration, she, in her 90s, she took them to court and made sure that they couldn’t, her voice could not be used and abused in this way. And so I’m going to finish with a record that she made towards the end of the war when it was clear, of course, that the war would be won and that it would soon all be over.
♪ When they sound the last all clear ♪ ♪ How happy my darling we’ll be ♪ ♪ When they turn up the lights ♪ ♪ And the dark lonely nights ♪ ♪ Are only a memory ♪ ♪ Never more we’ll be apart ♪ ♪ Always together, sweetheart ♪ ♪ For the peace bells will ring ♪ ♪ And the whole world will sing ♪ ♪ When they sound the last all clear ♪ ♪ We’ve got our troubles ♪ All right, well, let’s see what you have to say.
Q&A and Comments:
This is Michael Osfield saying, his parents would not have met either. His mother was British and his dad a Canadian soldier. I once went to a dinner party where I think there were about a dozen people around the table. And we realised, by the end of the dinner that not one of us would’ve have been born without the Second World War.
Yes, my mother was in service. She was in the Navy, my father was in the Army and my mother was in the Navy. And this is David Sefton, whose father served in the British Eighth Army in North Africa, Italy and Palestine. That’s interesting. You have a diary, because, strictly speaking, people weren’t supposed to keep diaries ‘cause they’re very interesting when they survive. And it sounds like he was in all the places.
David, your father was all in all the places that my father was. So it’s not unlikely they could have met one another.
This is Dennis, who likes to be taken back to his youth. Charlie Kunz, Bert Ambrose. Yes, very nostalgic names. Yes, she had wonderful enunciation, but that’s another thing I should have talked about. She was a working class girl. So in a way, she had to change her pronunciation, but she didn’t overdo it. You know, if you think of some of the, well, think of Noel Coward. She was never somebody to hide her origins or somebody who was ashamed of her origins. That’s very, very much part of her appeal that she was a woman of the people. I mean, I dunno if you know Jesse Matthews, for instance, who came from a similar background, but who puts on this or rather absurdly cut-glass, upper class accent.
This is Sandy. Your father was part of the retreat from Norway. He was very lucky to survive that because not many people did.
This is Janet’s, “This always haunts me, that without World War two, I would not be… My English father rescued my Danish mother after a rapid wedding in Denmark and they went to U.S.A.” Yes, your story is a familiar one.
And this is, oh, hi, Michael. “Our friend and her sister shared the same nanny as Vera.” Well, I presumably mean, Vera’s daughter, Virginia. 'Cause I don’t think Vera would’ve had a nanny when she was a child. They weren’t that kind of a family.
Yes, I know. Well, Rita, you have to think positively of good that came out of terrible, terrible evil. What else can I say? Thank you, Sally.
Did the late, I’m not sure about that, Gita. It sounds very believable that the Queen used “We’ll Meet Again” to cheer us through COVID.
And this is Michael again, saying, that even 30 years after the war. I find that song very… It’s funny, I didn’t really like it when I was a child. I didn’t like Vera Lynn. Maybe it was a bit too close, but now, I find her really touching and I find her singing very beautiful.
Q: “Did Vera Lynn work with the same composer?”
A: No, she didn’t. She worked with a number of different composers and lyricists.
“We’ll Meet Again” brings tears to your eyes as Betty and you were born years after the war 'cause your parents lost whole families. And my mother would actually weep when she heard Vera Lynn singing it.
Did Marlina? Yeah, oh yes. Marlina had left. Marlina left in, I think 1931. So well, well before the war. She received offers to go back, but always resisted them. That’s another whole talk really. Marlina and her relationship with her country.
This is Lorna saying, “Vera was a true icon. Not only that, but at the time of, "House” was issued with the lyrics of all the latest hits so we could sing along.“
This is Jean, "That’s my father enlisted in British Army and in 1943 was sent to be medical officer of royal engineers in Suez.” Dudley Horde was his Batman. We have three cartoons that record their posting. My mother-in-law took her newborn son to her mother in a tiny village in Scotland as Wolverhampton was too close to the bombing.
This is Jacqueline. He thought “J'attendrai” was during the first war. No, no, no, it was actually, “J'attendrai” was written just before the Second World War, but it became a song of the Second World War. And “Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart” top U.S. Charts in 1951. That’s true, it was a remarkable comeback for Vera after the end of the war.
Carla, I don’t know this. I heard that she outlived the copyright on her recordings. I think it’s possible considering her great age. I can’t confirm that, Carla, but it sounds very believable.
Thank you, Rita. Yes, she recorded “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” right at the beginning of the war. I think, 1940 or '41. I don’t have a TV. I haven’t watched TV in this century, so I can’t comment on that. This is Dinyana, who’s parents also met as a result of the war, Berlin and Rome.
And… Yes, hello, Beverly, other Beverly I knew from Holy Blossom. Well, you know, it’s this, one of the wonderful things about lockdown, and thank you, Wendy, is how it has brought so many, I’ve met so many wonderful people. I’ve made new friends and I’ve also been reunited with people I haven’t been in touch with for the years. And that is one of the great things about lockdown university.
So that seems to be it. Thank you very much. That’s my last talk from Paris for a while. I’m going to be briefly in London and then off to Italy for the Verdi Festival in Parma. So I will see you, I think, yes, we’ll meet again on Wednesday from London. Thank you, bye-bye.