Some Sunny Day. Dame Vera Lynn

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Название Some Sunny Day
Автор произведения Dame Vera Lynn
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Серия
Издательство Биографии и Мемуары
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007343362



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SOME SUNNY DAY

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      FIRST EDITION

      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2009

      Copyright © 2009 by Margaret Lynn Ltd

      Sections of this book were previously published under the title Vocal Refrain in 1975.

      Front cover photographs © 2005 Topfoto/Topfoto.co.uk (Vera Lynn in wartime uniform); Bettmann/Corbis (aeroplanes); US Army/Handout/CNP/Corbis (background)

      The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      Source ISBN: 9780007318919

      Ebook Edition © June 2020 ISBN: 9780007343362

      Version 2020-06-22

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      To my wonderful Harry, with whom I was so fortunate

      to share my life for all those years.

      And to ‘The Boys’, to whom we all owe so much—

      your spirit and humour live with me to this day.

      Never forgotten.

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Chapter Three: Vocal Chorus

       Chapter Four: A Taste of Ambrosia

       Chapter Five: Wild About Harry

       Chapter Six: A Country at War

       Chapter Seven: Sincerely Yours

       Chapter Eight: Off to see the Burma Boys

       Chapter Nine: A Journey with a Legacy

       Chapter Ten: A House is a Home

       Chapter Eleven: After the Interval

       Chapter Twelve: Not My Style

       Chapter Thirteen: Round & About

       Chapter Fourteen: Everybody’s Talking

       Chapter Fifteen: Never Quite Retired

       Index

       About the Publisher

       Acknowledgements

      Imust thank all my family, of course, for their constant support and love.

      And there are too many others whom I have met and worked with over the years to thank here, so I will mention just three: my dear friend Wally Ridley, for his help in those Denmark Street days; Joe Loss, for selecting me for my first broadcast; and Norman Newell, who produced all my early records. These three men were instrumental in making my life the extraordinary event that it has been.

       Introduction

      Iwill always remember the moment war was declared at the beginning of September 1939. I was sitting in the garden of the new house I had bought in Barking with Mum and Dad. Life was going well for me: I was singing with Bert Ambrose’s band, fulfilling what was really the only ambition I had ever had: to be the best singer with the best band in the land. Before the announcement came, anyone would have told you that times were not easy, but my life was certainly not bad.

      On that day I remember we were all drinking tea in the garden, my dad sitting in his deckchair as he loved to do. He was always brown from sitting in the sun. Naturally we had the radio on all the time because everyone was interested in what was going on. For weeks everyone had been on tenterhooks, not knowing what was going to come. And that’s when I heard the news. The first thought that came into my head was a selfish one: Oh dear. There goes my singing career. Everything I have dreamed of, I thought to myself, is over. The men—including all the musicians I knew in the band—would all be going away to fight. And I would be headed straight for the munitions factory. I was only twenty-two. It seemed like the end