She began performing publicly at the age of seven and adopted her maternal grandmother Margaret's maiden name "Lynn" as her stage name when she was eleven. Aged 11, she joined a juvenile troupe called Madame Harris's Kracker Kabaret Kids. Early in 1933 she was spotted by Howard Baker, who invited her to join his band. In turn, she was taken on by
Billy Cotton and briefly toured with his band in 1934 before returning to Baker. It was with Baker that she made her first record on 17 February 1935, "It's Home". Her first radio broadcast, with the
Joe Loss Orchestra, was made on 21 August 1935. At this point she appeared on records released by dance bands including those of Loss and of
Charlie Kunz. In 1936, her first solo record was released on the Crown label, "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire". This label was absorbed by
Decca Records in 1938. She supported herself by working as an administrative assistant to the head of a shipping management company in London's East End. After a short stint with Loss she stayed with Kunz for a year or so during which she recorded several standard musical pieces. She joined the
Ambrose band in 1937 and remained with him until 1940, when she went solo.
Wartime career Lynn's wartime contribution began when she would sing to people who were using
London's tube station platforms as air raid shelters. She would drive there in her
Austin 10 car. Between 1937 and 1940, she also toured with
Bert Ambrose as part of the Ambrose Octet; the group appeared in broadcasts for the
BBC and for
Radio Luxembourg. She left Ambrose in 1940. During the
Phoney War in the early months of World War II, the
Daily Express asked British servicemen to name their favourite musical performers: Vera Lynn came out on top and as a result became known as "the Forces' Sweetheart". On 1 July 1940, Lynn made her first appearance as a "fully fledged solo act" at the
New Hippodrome in
Coventry. Lynn appeared in the revue
Applesauce! with
Max Miller, which commenced on 22 August 1940 at the
Holborn Empire and ran until 9 September 1940. Its run was curtailed due to a bomb destroying the theatre. The revue continued at the
London Palladium from 5 March 1941 and ended on 29 November that year. Lynn had to leave the show for a while in July 1941 to have her appendix removed. Lynn is best known for the popular song "
We'll Meet Again", written by
Ross Parker and
Hughie Charles. She first recorded it in 1939 with Arthur Young on
Novachord, and later again in 1953 accompanied by servicemen from the
British Armed Forces. The nostalgic lyrics ("We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day") were very popular during the war and made the song one of its emblematic hits. Amongst her other well-known wartime hits was "
The White Cliffs of Dover", with words by Nat Burton and music by
Walter Kent. Her continuing popularity was ensured by the success of her weekly 30-minute radio programme
Sincerely Yours, which began airing at 9:30 p.m. on 9 November 1941, with messages to British troops serving abroad. Lynn and her quartet performed songs most requested by the soldiers. Lynn also visited hospitals to interview new mothers and send personal messages to their husbands overseas. However, in the aftermath of the
fall of Singapore in February 1942 the programme was taken off air after the broadcast on 22 March 1942 for 18 months out of fear that the sentimental nature of her songs would undermine the "virile" nature of British soldiers. Instead, "more traditionally martial classical music" was promoted. Lynn returned with a regular show called "It's Time for Vera Lynn" on the BBC's Forces programme on 31 October 1943, when she was accompanied by Peter Yorke and His Orchestra. During the war years, she joined the
Entertainments National Service Association and toured
Egypt,
India and
Burma, giving outdoor concerts for British troops. In March 1944, she went to
Shamshernagar airfield in
Bengal to entertain the troops before the
Battle of Kohima. Her host and lifelong friend Captain
Bernard Holden recalled "her courage and her contribution to morale". In 1985, she received the
Burma Star for entertaining British guerrilla units in
Japanese-occupied Burma. Between 1942 and 1944, she appeared in three movies with wartime themes. and
One Exciting Night (1944). In
Rhythm Serenade she played a school teacher. After her school is closed, she tries to join up. However, she is persuaded to organise a nursery for a munitions factory.
One Exciting Night (also known as ''You Can't Do Without Love'') was a dramatic musical comedy in which she helps thwart a gang of art thieves.
Postwar career Lynn's only child, daughter Virginia Penelope Ann Lewis, was born on 10 March 1946. This was broadcast on Sunday evenings from 9:30-10:00 p.m. with
Robert Farnon leading the musical accompaniment. Her husband became her manager. Lynn also recorded a cover of "
You Can't Be True, Dear" in 1948, which charted in the US and peaked at No. 14 on the
Billboard charts. In 1949, the BBC dropped her radio show because it claimed that there was no demand for her "sob stuff"; they wanted her to sing in a more lively style, so she made shows for Radio Luxembourg instead. Lynn kept touring and recording, and in 1952 Lynn's British recording of a German song, "
Auf Wiederseh'n, Sweetheart", became her best selling record. It became the first record by a British performer to top the charts in the United States, remaining there for nine weeks. In Britain, the song was the best-selling record of the year. She also appeared regularly for a time on
Tallulah Bankhead's US radio programme
The Big Show. "Auf Wiederseh'n, Sweetheart", along with "
The Homing Waltz" and "
Forget-Me-Not", gave Lynn three entries on the first
UK Singles Chart in November 1952. Lynn was in the
London Laughs revue at the
Adelphi Theatre, London from 12 April 1952 to 6 February 1954 with
Tony Hancock and
Jimmy Edwards. Her popularity continued in that decade, peaking with "
My Son, My Son", a number-one hit in 1954 written by Gordon Melville Rees, Bob Howard and
Eddie Calvert. It also reached No. 28 on
Billboard magazine's
singles charts in the USA. In 1956, Lynn began her first television series for
Associated-Rediffusion. During the same year, she signed an exclusive contract with the BBC for two years of radio and television work. She recorded for EMI's
Columbia,
MGM and
His Master's Voice labels. She also recorded
Lionel Bart's song "The Day After Tomorrow" for the 1962 musical
Blitz!; she did not appear onstage in the play, but the characters in the play hear the song on the radio while they shelter from the bombs. In 1967, she recorded "
It Hurts To Say Goodbye", a song which hit the top 10 on the
Billboard Easy Listening chart. She hosted her own variety series on
BBC1 in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was a frequent guest on other variety shows such as the 1972
Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show. In 1972, she was a key performer in the
BBC anniversary programme
Fifty Years of Music. In 1976, she hosted the BBC's
A Jubilee of Music, celebrating the pop music hits of the period 1952 to 1976 to commemorate the start of
Queen Elizabeth II's
Silver Jubilee year. For
ITV, she presented a 1977 TV special to launch her album
Vera Lynn in Nashville, which included pop songs of the 1960s and country songs. The
Royal Variety Performance included appearances by Vera Lynn on seven occasions: 1951, 1952, 1957, 1960, 1975, 1986 and 1990. Lynn was also interviewed about her role in entertaining the troops in the India-Burma Theatre, for
The World at War series in 1974. Lynn is also notable for being the only artist to have a chart span on the British single and album charts reaching from the chart's inception to the 21st century – in 1952 having three singles in the first ever singles chart, compiled by
New Musical Express, and later having a 1 album with ''We'll Meet Again – The Very Best of Vera Lynn''.
Recording career Lynn's earliest solo recordings were issued on the Crown label. Her early dance band vocal refrain recordings include "
I'm in the Mood for Love" and "
Red Sails in the Sunset". In 1938, the Decca label took over control of the British Crown label and the UK-based Rex label; they had also issued early singles from Lynn in 1937, including "
Harbour Lights". In late September 1939, Vera Lynn first recorded a song that continues to be associated with her: "We'll Meet Again", originally recorded with Arthur Young on the Novachord.
Later years Lynn sang outside
Buckingham Palace in 1995 in a ceremony that marked the golden jubilee of
VE Day. The United Kingdom's
VE Day ceremonies in 2005 included a concert in
Trafalgar Square, London, in which Lynn made a surprise appearance. She made a speech praising the veterans and calling upon the younger generation always to remember their sacrifice, and joined in with a few bars of "We'll Meet Again". This would be Lynn's final vocal performance at a VE Day anniversary event. In her speech Lynn said: "These boys gave their lives and some came home badly injured, and for some families life would never be the same. We should always remember, we should never forget, and we should teach the children to remember". In September 2008, Lynn helped launch a new social history recording website, "The Times of My Life", at the
Cabinet War Rooms in London. Lynn published her autobiography,
Some Sunny Day, in 2009. She had written two previous memoirs:
Vocal Refrain (1975) and ''We'll Meet Again'' (1989). In February 2009, it was reported that Lynn was suing the
British National Party (BNP) for using "The White Cliffs of Dover" on an anti-immigration album without her permission. Her lawyer claimed the album seemed to link Lynn, who did not align with any political party, to the party's views by association. In September 2009, at the age of 92, Lynn became the oldest living artist to make it to No. 1 in the British album chart. Her compilation album ''
We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn entered the chart at number 20 on 30 August, and then climbed to No. 2 the following week before reaching the top position, outselling both the Arctic Monkeys and the Beatles. With this achievement, she surpassed Bob Dylan as the oldest artist to have a number one album in the UK. In May 2015, she was unable to attend VE Day 70: A Party to Remember in London, but was interviewed at home by the Daily Mirror''. Three days before her 100th birthday on 17 March 2017, a new album entitled
Vera Lynn 100 was released through
Decca Records. The album, setting Lynn's original vocals to new re-orchestrated versions of her songs, also involved several duet partners, including
Alfie Boe,
Alexander Armstrong,
Aled Jones and
the RAF Squadronaires.
Parlophone, which owns Lynn's later recordings from the 1960s and 1970s, released a collection of her songs recorded at
Abbey Road Studios entitled
Her Greatest from Abbey Road on 10 March 2017, including five previously unreleased original recordings. By October 2017, she was the best-selling female artist of the year in the UK, having sold more albums than
Dua Lipa and
Lana Del Rey. Lynn received two nominations at the 2018
Classic Brit Awards for Female Artist of the Year and Album of the Year and was also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award. in front of his portrait of Lynn at the unveiling ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall on 13 January 2020. In January 2020, a new painted portrait of Lynn was given as a gift from London Mint Office to the
Royal Albert Hall in connection with the 75th anniversary of the peace in 1945. The portrait is painted by
Ross Kolby and was unveiled by Lynn's daughter Virginia Lewis-Jones and ''
Britain's Got Talent'' winner
Colin Thackery. On 5 April 2020 the song "We'll Meet Again" was echoed by Queen Elizabeth II in a television address she delivered addressing the
COVID-19 pandemic. For the 75th anniversary of
VE Day, Lynn and Katherine Jenkins duetted virtually (Jenkins singing next to a
hologram) at the
Royal Albert Hall, which was empty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2021, a wildflower meadow on the
White Cliffs of Dover was named in honour of Lynn. ==Honours and cultural references==