Dame Vera Lynn: The Original Forces Sweetheart is Still in Demand (Age 92, We'll Meet Again)

Telegraph UK ^ | 08/17/2009 | Telegraph UK

[Dallas59]

At 92, Dame Vera Lynn is still merrily doing her bit for Britain – and pulling off a mean impression of Marlene Dietrich. To mark the publication of her latest memoir, she talks (and sings) to Nigel Farndale The woman who answers the door has a face at once strange and familiar. She looks like Dame Vera Lynn, only how she would have looked about 30 years ago. It is more a trick of the genes than the light. 'I'm Vera's daughter,' she says in a voice similar to her mother's, with its faint traces of the East End.

Her name is Virginia, she was born a year after the war ended and now lives next door to her mother, here in a village in East Sussex. To add to the disconcertion, Dame Vera herself, who is 92, still looks pretty much as she did a few decades ago. Her hair is white but she is still straight-spined, still has an easy smile, still plays the game when asked to recall the war years with which she became synonymous.

[Dallas59]

We'll Meet Again

Yours

[nickcarraway]

Bump

[rightwingintelligentsia]

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdGX_FcvVoE

White Cliffs of Dover

...”tomorrow, when the world is free...”

[jimfree]

She remains lovely. I covered We'll Meet Again in a very small pond context. Mine is a square dance recording that uses the song.

[Krankor]

The Dr. Strangelove version is one of the most powerful film endings in cinematic history

[Political Junkie Too]

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day?
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you?
Does anybody else here
Feel the way I do?

-PJ

[j_tull]

Followed immediately by “Bring the Boy’s Back Home!”

[elcid1970]

I probably wouldn’t have heard of Dame Vera Lynn but for “Dr. Strangelove”.

Even so, the moral equivalence of that antiwar film was despicable, considering the truths which were already known about the horrific Soviet Union and its satellites.

Juxtaposing “We’ll Meet Again” with multiple file footages of nuclear tests (as though doomsday) was both clever and puerile (as are most on the Left; talk to one and see).

[SteamShovel]

The Dr. Strangelove version is one of the most powerful film endings in cinematic history.

Absolutely!....It's a sad and yet hopeful ending at the same time.

[originalbuckeye]

My in-laws home is in a village near to where Dame Vera Lynn lives. My father-in-law (RAF-WW2) always used to scoff that there ‘are no bluebirds in England!’. He passed away earlier this year and this song will always bring tears to my eyes.

[dr_who]

I’m scratching my head wondering if that statement was intended to be funny.

[uncbob]

That is one of the most hauntingly sad songs ever even though it isn’t supposed to be

[uncbob]

I have her WWII CD

Not something to listen to if you are down

[SteamShovel]

I’m scratching my head wondering if that statement was intended to be funny.

Just as the movie is funny and yet it is not; the ending is sad and tragic, but the Vera Lynn song gives hope that there will be a "Sunny Day" again....sometime.

Or so I see it.....but I never was much for giveing critiques of movies, plays, or artwork. So take it with a grain of salt!

[DGHoodini]

(smile) i just listened to her singing ‘We’ll Meet again’ a coup,le of days ago..still gets to me.

[DGHoodini]

Floyd?

[LibFreeOrDie]

The Vera Lynn ending to Dr. Strangelove was not the original one.

The original ending (filmed, but only stills survive) was a pie fight in the War Room.

When I saw the film in its original theater run, the Vera Lynn ending seemed tacked on at the last minute. In fact Kubrick had thought of a great ending, but decided not to use it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Original_ending:_the_pie_fight

[Borges]

Who said that film was antiwar? It made fun of a weak antiwar President who was modeled on Adalai Stevenson.

[6323cd]

My parents had a 78 RPM record of Dame Vera singing “Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart”. I literally wore it out from playing it over and over and over...... Love her music.