Vera LYNN (1917-2020)

Vera Lynn This Is Your Life

programme details...

  • Edition No: 37
  • Subject No: 37
  • Broadcast live: Mon 14 Oct 1957
  • Broadcast time: 7.30-8.00pm
  • Venue: BBC Television Theatre
  • Series: 3
  • Edition: 3

on the guest list...

  • Ernie Chadwick
  • Pat Barry
  • Grace Harris
  • Annie - mother
  • Howard Baker
  • Joe Loss
  • Joe Brannelly
  • Bert Ambrose
  • Harry Lewis - husband
  • Ex Flt Sgt William Crocker
  • Virginia Lewis
  • Gnr Fred Thomas
  • Filmed tribute:
  • Charlie Kunz

production team...

  • Researchers: Nigel Ward, George Bruce, Michael Friend
  • Writer: Peter Moore
  • Director: unknown
  • Producer: T Leslie Jackson
  • names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
related pages...

Vera Lynn

second tribute


A Song For Life

it's the singer not the song


Life Second Time Around

surprised again!


The Night of 1000 Lives

a celebration of a thousand editions


'This Is Your Life' But It Dominates MINE!

Producer Leslie Jackson recalls some heart-stopping moments


Joe Brannelly


Joe Loss


Interviews

Vera Lynn recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in an exclusive interview recorded in October 2009

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Photographs of Vera Lynn This Is Your Life - and a photograph of Vera Lynn's big red book

Vera Lynn's autobiography

Vera Lynn recalls her experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, Some Sunny Day...


A show at a hospital, as distinct from just a visit, usually took the form of getting as many men as possible into one ward, dragging the piano in and singing.


But always there would be men too ill to be moved, and I'd go and see them after the main performance was over. It was in that way that I sang to my smallest audience – of two. They were both too poorly to come and sit in the concert and were both terribly wounded.


They asked me to sing 'We'll Meet Again'. I could see what they were thinking. In the end only one got home. Years later I was invited to do This Is Your Life and they had managed to find him. I never knew how: I didn't know his name and I certainly didn't know where he lived. I was so surprised and moved, I couldn't believe it.

Vera Lynn's autobiography

Vera Lynn recalls a similar experience of This Is Your Life in her autobiography, Keep Smiling Through...


Normally when I performed at a hospital we would try to fit as many men into a ward as possible and do the concert there. Some men could not be moved, though, and often I would go and sing for those men who were too ill to come to the main performance. I don't think it was the only place where this happened, but in Dimapur I sang to an audience of only two men - Gunner Fred Thomas, from Bootle in Merseyside, and Private John Badger, of Sheffield. Both men had been so badly wounded that they were too ill to be evacuated out of Dimapur, so getting out of bed to hear me sing wasn't an option. So I sang just for the two of them. I still have a tiny little newspaper clipping that I expect my mother had cut out while I was away. It says: 'Vera had tea at their bedsides, chatted about their home towns - and answered a whispered appeal for a song.' They asked me to sing 'We'll Meet Again'. I had a lump in my throat as I was singing it, as slowly and tenderly as I could. In the end, only one of these two boys - Fred Thomas - made it home. Years later, in 1957, I was invited to do This Is Your Life, and they had managed to find him. I was so surprised and moved; I couldn't believe it.

Series 3 subjects

Albert Whelan | Colin Hodgkinson | Vera Lynn | Arthur Christiansen | John Logie Baird | Richard Carr-Gomm | Jack Train
Edith Powell | Anne Brusselmans | Norman Wisdom | Victor Silvester | Jack Petersen | Lucy Jane Dobson
David Bell | Matt Busby | Minnie Barnard | Gordon Steele | Louie Ramsay | Tubby Clayton | Daniel Angel
Anna Neagle | 'Dapper' Channon | Frederick Stone | Paul Field | Noel Purcell | Barbara Cartland
Harry Secombe | Archie Rowe | Humphrey Lyttelton | Francis Cammaerts | A E Matthews