Dame Vera Lynn’s daughter appeals for funds to construct statue of singer

There was by no means a Dame fairly like Forces’ Sweetheart Vera Lynn. When she acquired her title at Buckingham Palace in 1975, our late Queen Elizabeth twinkled: ‘I feel that is about time, do not you Dame Vera?’

The legendary entertainer risked her life visiting troops, typically hundreds of miles from residence, throughout World War II to present hope to these she known as ‘my boys’ of their darkest hour with morale-boosting songs akin to We’ll Meet Again and The White Cliffs Of Dover.

In the many years since, she selflessly carried out extra charitable works than most of us have had pay cheques, with the phrases in We’ll Meet Again resonating as soon as extra through the coronavirus pandemic when the Queen used them to encourage trendy Britain to evoke the spirit of its wartime era.

Or, as her daughter Virginia Lewis-Jones tells me: ‘Doing the appropriate factor was in Mummy’s DNA. I feel she and the Queen exemplified the identical spirit. I do know Mummy had nice respect and fondness for HM, and I feel HM had the identical factor for Mummy.’

Indeed. When Dame Vera, a plumber’s daughter from East Ham, London, ‘drifted away’ in hospital in June 2020 on the age of 103, the primary particular person to be advised was the Queen whom she had recognized since she sang on the then Princess Elizabeth’s sixteenth birthday at Windsor. The Queen despatched her non-public condolences to Dame Vera’s household, and was stated to be ‘very, very unhappy’.

For these two exceptional girls shared not solely an influence to attach the nation, however a permanent friendship and wondrous sense of humour.

‘They used to satisfy quite a bit at varied dos,’ says Virginia. ‘The Queen had a really dry sense of humour and Mummy had a giggly humour on foolish issues that will simply hit her humorous bone. She could not have given a stuff actually that they got here from totally different worlds. She liked her.

‘I feel that they had lots of enjoyable. My father [Vera’s cherished husband of 57 years, and manager, Harry Lewis] was at all times there supporting her, and the Duke of Edinburgh was typically there with the Queen.

‘I bear in mind Daddy telling me as soon as that he [Prince Philip] stated to him: ‘Harry, they might suppose they’re in cost, however you and I do know that it is us, standing behind them, who actually are.’

Virginia hoots with laughter. ‘I used to be in hysterics when he stated that to me. Mummy did prefer to suppose she was in cost.’

Virginia, 77, is a brilliant, sparky girl who, I’m certain, was greater than able to giving her indomitable mom a run for her cash.

‘We’re each hyper-mobile,’ she provides, throwing her leg excessive within the air to exhibit. She is the spitting picture of her mom. So a lot in order that as she sits speaking to me from Dame Vera’s previous armchair beneath a wartime poster of her, you’ll be able to’t assist however give your self a shake.

We’re in the home that was Dame Vera’s household residence since 1956 in Ditchling, East Sussex, the place, three years in the past, crowds lined the streets as her coffin handed by whereas two Spitfires did a flypast overhead in her honour.

Poignantly, her funeral befell on the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain and posters of the wartime singer along with her slash of purple lipstick embellished the slim streets. I’m advised Dame Vera by no means noticed anyone with out placing on that lipstick ‘proper to the very finish’. She died in a West Sussex hospital after struggling a chest an infection.

‘She’d begun to — not diminish, that is the mistaken phrase — however settle again over the previous couple of months,’ says Virginia. ‘It’s going to be tough to clarify however she was starting to be just a little quieter, just a little extra…’ Virginia chews her lip as she searches for the appropriate phrase.

‘She was extra relaxed. It’s as if she was saying: ‘I’ve completed my obligation, learn the guide, been within the movie.’ She was content material.’

For her 103rd birthday, three months earlier than her demise, a Spitfire emblazoned with the phrases ‘Thank You NHS’ (which she had requested) flew over her residence.

Virginia says: ‘That was a big day. We all watched it. She liked seeing it go previous from the window, however not in an excited means; extra a quiet, gratified means.’

Of her mom’s passing, Virginia says: ‘I feel you get to a sure level the place every thing begins to wear down and that is in all probability what occurred. She was 103. Then in the future she wore out a bit extra [and was taken to hospital] and it was solely two or three days after that.’

Virginia pauses. She’s desperately making an attempt to be stoic, simply as her mom would have anticipated, however that is the primary time Virginia has spoken about Dame Vera’s closing weeks.

‘We [Virginia and her husband, former RAF squadron leader Tom Jones] have been along with her daily. On the final day [in hospital] she was largely simply sleeping.

‘She stated: ‘I’m terribly thirsty. Can I’ve a cup of tea?’ I went to get her one, and by the point I got here again she was sleeping once more. It was all very calm. She simply drifted off.’ The contents of Dame Vera’s residence are actually being packed into containers. Virginia and Tom moved in to assist her in her final years however the home was not too long ago bought.

Virginia is at sixes and sevens making an attempt to empty it however has kindly made time for this interview to hold out mom’s final want: to make sure that the values she championed tirelessly all through her astonishing life are by no means forgotten.

On the anniversary of her demise those that cared for Dame Vera launched an enchantment to create a memorial which is able to commemorate not solely her, however all artists who carry out throughout instances of battle. It is hoped the statue, designed and created by famend sculptor Paul Day, whose work consists of the Battle of Britain Memorial on London’s Embankment, will stand within the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

As properly as Dame Vera, the sculpture will honour her husband Harry and the late Conservative MP Sir David Amess, who was a driving drive behind the memorial statue enchantment earlier than he was stabbed to demise whereas holding a surgical procedure in his Essex constituency two years in the past.

‘Sir David emailed me within the November after Mummy’s demise and stated he’d like to talk to me a few memorial for her.

‘He held a deep love and respect for my mom. Like her, he was pretty to everybody. No matter who you have been — no matter race, faith, creed or color — he’d need to provide help to.

‘He was the instigator for this, feeling it was time any person recognised Mummy not just for what she’d completed through the battle, however what she did for charity all through her life.’

The Dame Vera Lynn Memorial Statue Fund wants to lift an extra £1 million to achieve its goal of £1.5 million. Readers of the Daily Mail and MailOnline have at all times proven immense generosity. Calling upon that kindness, we’re supporting a push to lift the funds to make sure Vera Lynn, who in 2000 was named the Briton who finest exemplified the spirit of the twentieth century, will at all times be remembered.

‘Duty was crucial to Mummy,’ says Virginia. ‘Sometimes she’d say she and Daddy have been going to must go to London to do so-and-so after I knew she’d have most popular to remain residence and sit by the fireplace. But she’d go as a result of it was the appropriate factor to do. She felt when you might assist somebody — even when it was only one particular person — you need to.’

Dame Vera spent three months risking her life in Burma in 1944 to spice up troop morale. The stench of gangrene and the tears of grown males distressed her.

‘She’d go to the wounded within the tents and sit with them, having non-public discussions,’ says Virginia. ‘She at all times known as them ‘my boys’, and to know that connection continued to exist after the battle was crucial.’

Indeed, among the many 3,500 letters of condolence that arrived following her demise, one was from a chap in Burma who was tortured by the Japanese. He suffered devastating psychological well being points and wrote that the one factor that obtained him via the day was enjoying her music within the morning, which gave him the energy to hold on.

Understandably, Virginia believes her mom would have been ‘very cross’ about final month’s demonstrations on the Cenotaph.

‘She would have hated the actual fact of individuals making an attempt to derail the British Legion’s Poppy Day,’ says Virginia. ‘These younger folks have not obtained a clue. What they need to be doing is thanking those that sacrificed their lives, which has enabled them to exhibit in a free nation.

‘Plenty of right now’s values usually are not what they need to be. These days any person seems on a actuality TV present after which they seem to be a superstar.

‘A star in Mummy’s days was any person who did one thing worthwhile. They entertained folks and contributed to society, somewhat than nervous about me-me-me on social media. I consider younger folks might do extra for others.’

Virginia was born in 1946, a yr after the battle ended. Dame Vera liked her dearly, known as her ‘my best achievement’ and did not intend to work once more.

‘Gradually folks stated: ‘Actually, we might such as you to do that, that and the opposite.’ But every time she was at residence she’d at all times tuck me up in mattress and sing or learn to me — Noddy, the Famous Five books.

‘Mummy and Daddy weren’t actually occasion folks. Although I do bear in mind Tex Ritter [the ‘Singing Cowboy’ and pioneer of American country music] coming to the home. They introduced him upstairs to satisfy me. I will need to have been about 5 and I stated: ‘Did you convey your horse with you?’ He replied: ‘No, I could not get him within the taxi.”

Dame Vera final sang in public at a Buckingham Palace occasion in 1995 marking the fiftieth anniversary of the top of World War II.

She by no means obtained sick of being requested to sing The White Cliffs of Dover as a result of she knew how a lot it meant to everybody. She used to say the white cliffs have been the very last thing the boys noticed as they set off for battle. Dame Vera knew that music meant residence to them.

For Virginia, house is the odor of her mom’s favorite fragrance, Joy. She continues to catch the odd whiff of it round the home and senses Dame Vera ‘kind of pottering about’.

‘She was an amazing gardener. She painted, too, or did her stitching; she made lots of my garments after I was little. Her means of getting away from all of it was by having this fully totally different side to her life.

‘When my father handed away [in 1998] on the age of 89, it affected her very a lot as a result of he was her rock, actually. Mummy simply saved gardening and doing issues to strive to deal with it, however she at all times felt they’d meet once more. She believed she can be with all of the folks she was with right here earlier than — individuals who did the appropriate factor.’

And it’s for us to recollect them, too.