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In the war’s darkest days, Lynn’s songs of optimism and love exemplified the very best of what we thought ourselves to be
“We’ll meet again”: no lyrics and no song could be more blazingly appropriate to our times. It speaks to both the circumstances of the pandemic and the sentiments of a funeral. And now Dame Vera Lynn, the person who immortalised that song and with it herself, has died aged 103. Sadness rather than regrets are in order: we all have to die. The times she celebrated are gone too, their last gasp distorted into the faux patriotism of Brexit.
Ever since her passing was announced on Thursday morning, the airwaves have been choked with tributes, reminiscences and celebrations. They are nothing if not adulatory of the woman and her life. Quite right too: she held a special place in the lives and experience of people like me who lived through the war years. What’s more, she sustained a major career as a musical and recording star through the decades since. She was always, even recently, a great entertainer. Continue reading...