Search results for ""author dame vera lynn""

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.

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In the year of her 100th birthday, Dame Vera Lynn's fascinating and life-affirming wartime memoir from the forces' sweetheart's of her adventures entertaining the troops in far-flung Burma.'I was just twenty-seven years old when I went to Burma. It was an experience that changed my life for ever. Up until that time I had not really travelled anywhere at all, apart from one touring visit to Holland with a band I was singing with before the war, and I had certainly never been in an aeroplane. But I wanted to make a difference, to do my bit.'And she did.Written with her daughter, Virginia Lewis-Jones this is a powerful and life-affirming account of the time she spent with troops in wartime Burma. Based, in part on a diary she kept, alongside unpublished personal letters and photographs from surviving veterans and their families, it explores why it was such a life-defining event for her and shows how her presence helped the soldiers, airmen and others who heard her sing.

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