The forces sweetheart

Harry Secombe once joked: "Churchill didn't beat the Nazis. Vera Lynn sang them to death."

- BY SIOBHAN MCNALLY

Which wasn't far from the truth... when touring Burma in 1944 to boost morale among war-weary troops, the Forces Sweetheart was so close to the battle lines as the Japanese advanced on India, her rich contralto voice would have floated over the enemy lines.

"Japanese soldiers could only have been three miles away while she was singing - they would definitely have heard her," says Dame Vera's daughter Virginia Lewis-Jones, as we look at old photos in her book about her mother, Keep Smiling Through.

Not many entertainers would go somewhere as dangerous as Burma, and it was Vera's bravery that won her an army of fans at war and back home.

Her three-month stint in the jungle must have affected her deeply, because she spent a lifetime raising funds for veterans and their families. We're sitting in her daughter's conservatory, surrounded by cards and vases of colourful blooms marking Virginia's 79th birthday.

But the pretty bungalow has the feel of someone who has just downsized.

"We sold Mummy's house last year - it was far too big for just the two of us," explains Virginia.

It must have been difficult as an only child to leave the houseful of memories but, clearly a chip off the old block, Virginia only admits to missing the swimming pool. "I just use the local spa instead," she shrugs.

Virginia lost her father in 1998 a terrible blow but it brought the mother and daughter even closer.

Now the fifth anniversary of her mother's death is looming, alongside the nation's marking of 80 years of the end of the Second World War.

Having celebrated her 100th birthday with great fanfare, a new album, birthday wishes from her friend Queen Elizabeth II, and an incredible cake of the White Cliffs of Dover, Dame Vera passed away aged 103 from pneumonia in June 2020.

"Mummy's brain was still very active, it was just, you know, she got very frail," recalls Virginia.