EXCLUSIVE ‘The first person who knew mummy has passed away was Her Majesty’: Dame Vera Lynn’s daughter reveals how the Forces’ Sweetheart had an enduring friendship with the late Queen as she appeals for funds to build a statue of the beloved singer

• The legendary entertainer risked her life visiting troops during World War II 
• Heroic singer performed thousands of miles from home in war morale-boost

There was never a Dame quite like Forces’ Sweetheart Vera Lynn. When she received her title at Buckingham Palace in 1975, our late Queen Elizabeth twinkled: ‘I think this is about time, don’t you Dame Vera?’

The legendary entertainer risked her life visiting troops, often thousands of miles from home, during World War II to give hope to those she called ‘my boys’ in their darkest hour with morale-boosting songs such as We’ll Meet Again and The White Cliffs Of Dover.

In the decades since, she selflessly carried out more charitable works than most of us have had pay cheques, with the words in We’ll Meet Again resonating once more during the coronavirus pandemic when the Queen used them to inspire modern Britain to evoke the spirit of its wartime generation.

Or, as her daughter Virginia Lewis-Jones tells me: ‘Doing the right thing was in Mummy’s DNA. I think she and the Queen exemplified the same spirit. I know Mummy had great respect and fondness for HM, and I think HM had the same thing for Mummy.’

Indeed. When Dame Vera, a plumber’s daughter from East Ham, London, ‘drifted away’ in hospital in June 2020 at the age of 103, the first person to be told was the Queen whom she had known since she sang at the then Princess Elizabeth’s 16th birthday at Windsor. The Queen sent her private condolences to Dame Vera’s family, and was said to be ‘very, very sad’.

The legendary entertainer risked her life visiting troops, often thousands of miles from home, during World War II to give hope to those she called ‘my boys’ in their darkest hour

Dame Vera Lynn and daughter Virginia Dame Vera Lynn at home, East Sussex

For these two remarkable women shared not only a power to connect the nation, but an enduring friendship and wondrous sense of humour.

‘They used to meet quite a lot at various dos,’ says Virginia. ‘The Queen had a very dry sense of humour and Mummy had a giggly humour on silly things that would just hit her funny bone. She couldn’t have given a stuff really that they came from different worlds. She loved her.

‘I think they had a lot of fun. My father [Vera’s cherished husband of 57 years, and manager, Harry Lewis] was always there supporting her, and the Duke of Edinburgh was often there with the Queen.

‘I remember Daddy telling me once that he [Prince Philip] said to him: “Harry, they may think they’re in charge, but you and I know that it’s us, standing behind them, who really are.”

Virginia hoots with laughter. ‘I was in hysterics when he said that to me. Mummy did like to think she was in charge.’

Virginia, 77, is a bright, sparky woman who, I’m sure, was more than capable of giving her indomitable mother a run for her money.

‘We’re both hyper-mobile,’ she adds, throwing her leg high in the air to demonstrate. She is the spitting image of her mother. So much so that as she sits talking to me from Dame Vera’s old armchair beneath a wartime poster of her, you can’t help but give yourself a shake.

We’re in the house that was Dame Vera’s family home since 1956 in Ditchling, East Sussex, where, three years ago, crowds lined the streets as her coffin passed by while two Spitfires did a flypast overhead in her honour.

Poignantly, her funeral took place on the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and posters of the wartime singer with her slash of red lipstick decorated the narrow streets. I’m told Dame Vera never saw anybody without putting on that lipstick ‘right to the very end’. She died in a West Sussex hospital after suffering a chest infection.

‘She’d begun to — not diminish, that’s the wrong word — but settle back over the last few months,’ says Virginia. ‘It’s going to be difficult to explain but she was beginning to be a little quieter, a little more…’ Virginia chews her lip as she searches for the right word.

‘She was more relaxed. It’s as if she was saying: “I’ve done my duty, read the book, been in the film.” She was content.’

For her 103rd birthday, three months before her death, a Spitfire emblazoned with the words ‘Thank You NHS’ (which she had requested) flew over her home.

Virginia says: ‘That was a special day. We all watched it. She loved seeing it go past from the window, but not in an excited way; more a quiet, gratified way.’

Of her mother’s passing, Virginia says: ‘I think you get to a certain point where everything starts to wear out and that’s probably what happened. She was 103. Then one day she wore out a bit more [and was taken to hospital] and it was only two or three days after that.’

Virginia pauses. She’s desperately trying to be stoic, just as her mother would have expected, but this is the first time Virginia has spoken about Dame Vera’s final weeks.

‘We [Virginia and her husband, former RAF squadron leader Tom Jones] were with her every day. On the last day [in hospital] she was mostly just sleeping.

‘She said: “I’m terribly thirsty. Can I have a cup of tea?” I went to get her one, and by the time I came back she was sleeping again. It was all very calm. She just drifted off.’ The contents of Dame Vera’s home are now being packed into boxes. Virginia and Tom moved in to support her in her last years but the house was recently sold.

Virginia is at sixes and sevens trying to empty it but has kindly made time for this interview to carry out mother’s last wish: to ensure that the values she championed tirelessly throughout her astonishing life are never forgotten.

On the anniversary of her death those who cared for Dame Vera launched an appeal to create a memorial which will commemorate not only her, but all artists who perform during times of conflict. It is hoped the statue, designed and created by renowned sculptor Paul Day, whose work includes the Battle of Britain Memorial on London’s Embankment, will stand in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

As well as Dame Vera, the sculpture will honour her husband Harry and the late Conservative MP Sir David Amess, who was a driving force behind the memorial statue appeal before he was stabbed to death while holding a surgery in his Essex constituency two years ago.

‘Sir David emailed me in the November after Mummy’s death and said he’d like to chat to me about a memorial for her.

‘He held a deep love and respect for my mother. Like her, he was lovely to everyone. No matter who you were — whatever race, religion, creed or colour — he’d want to help you.

‘He was the instigator for this, feeling it was time somebody recognised Mummy not only for what she’d done during the war, but what she did for charity throughout her life.’

The Dame Vera Lynn Memorial Statue Fund needs to raise a further £1 million to reach its target of £1.5 million. Readers of the Daily Mail and MailOnline have always shown immense generosity. Calling upon that kindness, we are supporting a push to raise the funds to ensure Vera Lynn, who in 2000 was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the 20th century, will always be remembered.

‘Duty was very important to Mummy,’ says Virginia. ‘Sometimes she’d say she and Daddy were going to have to go to London to do so-and-so when I knew she’d have preferred to stay home and sit by the fire. But she’d go because it was the right thing to do. She felt if you could help someone — even if it was just one person — you should.’

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

‘She’d visit the wounded in the tents and sit with them, having private discussions,’ says Virginia. ‘She always called them “my boys”, and to know that connection continued to exist after the war was very important.’

Indeed, among the 3,500 letters of condolence that arrived following her death, one was from a chap in Burma who was tortured by the Japanese. He suffered devastating mental health issues and wrote that the only thing that got him through the day was playing her music in the morning, which gave him the strength to carry on.

Understandably, Virginia believes her mother would have been ‘very cross’ about last month’s demonstrations at the Cenotaph.

‘She would have hated the fact of people trying to derail the British Legion’s Poppy Day,’ says Virginia. ‘These young people haven’t got a clue. What they should be doing is thanking those who sacrificed their lives, which has enabled them to demonstrate in a free country.

‘A lot of today’s values are not what they should be. These days somebody appears on a reality TV show and then they’re a celebrity.

‘A celebrity in Mummy’s days was somebody who did something worthwhile. They entertained people and contributed to society, rather than worried about me-me-me on social media. I believe young people could do more for others.’

Virginia was born in 1946, a year after the war ended. Dame Vera loved her dearly, called her ‘my greatest achievement’ and didn’t intend to work again.

‘Gradually people said: “Actually, we’d like you to do this, that and the other.” But whenever she was at home she’d always tuck me up in bed and sing or read to me — Noddy, the Famous Five books.

‘Mummy and Daddy weren’t really party people. Although I do remember Tex Ritter [the ‘Singing Cowboy’ and pioneer of American country music] coming to the house. They brought him upstairs to meet me. I must have been about five and I said: “Did you bring your horse with you?” He replied: “No, I couldn’t get him in the taxi.” ’

Legendry singer Vera Lynn is most known for hits including “We’ll Meet Again”, “(There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” and “There’ll Always Be an England”

Dame Vera Lynn (R) meeting Queen Elizabeth II (R)

Dame Vera last sang in public at a Buckingham Palace event in 1995 marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.

She never got sick of being asked to sing The White Cliffs of Dover because she knew how much it meant to everyone. She used to say the white cliffs were the last thing the boys saw as they set off for war. Dame Vera knew that song meant home to them.

For Virginia, home is the smell of her mother’s favourite perfume, Joy. She continues to catch the odd whiff of it around the house and senses Dame Vera ‘sort of pottering about’.

‘She was a great gardener. She painted, too, or did her sewing; she made a lot of my clothes when I was little. Her way of getting away from it all was by having this completely different aspect to her life.

‘When my father passed away [in 1998] at the age of 89, it affected her very much because he was her rock, really. Mummy just kept gardening and doing things to try to cope with it, but she always felt they’d meet again. She believed she would be with all the people she was with here before — people who did the right thing.’

And it is for us to remember them, too.

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