20 March: Dame Vera Lynn's 100th birthday

Dame Vera Lynn was born on 20 March 1917, so she is 100 years old today. Here are some things you might not know about the We'll Meet Again singer:

1. Vera Lynn was born in East Ham, London, on 20 March 1917, during the first world war. Her father was a plumber and her mother was a dressmaker. She had a brother, Roger. In 1941 she married musician Harry Lewis, and has a daughter, Virginia. She started singing in public at the age of seven. She was eleven when she adopted her grandmother's maiden name, Lynn, as her stage name.
2. She was never formally trained as a singer and didn't read Music. When presented with a song, she'd always look at the lyrics before listening to the tune, believing the lyrics to be the most important aspect of a song.
3. Her nickname, The Forces' Sweetheart originated from a Daily Express poll of servicemen asking them who their favourite singer was. Vera Lynn came out on top and was known as the Forces' Sweetheart ever after that. She has an opinion as to who in the present day, should be her successor as Forces Sweetheart - the Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins.
4. During her early career, she sang and recorded with big bands, and made her first radio broadcast with the Joe Loss Orchestra in 1935. Her first solo record was released in 1936 and was called Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire.
5. During the second world war, she was well aware of the importance of keeping up morale among those serving abroad. She began her radio programme, Sincerely Yours in 1941 in which she performed favourite songs and sent messages from home to the troops. People loved it, but it was deemed too sentimental by some people, and those people had the power to have it taken off the air. This was when Vera Lynn decided to go and perform to the troops in person. She joined ENSA and toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving concerts for the troops.
6. She has a number of honours to her name - an OBE (1969), the Burma Star for entertaining British guerrilla units in Japanese-occupied Burma (1985), and was made a Dame in 1975. There is a street named after her in Forest Gate, London (not far from her birthplace) and has a steam locomotive named after her.
7. She's been a feature of the record charts since they began. She had three singles in the first ever chart in 1952 and was the first British performer to top the charts in America. In 2009 she became the oldest artist to have a number one album in the British charts at the age of 92. She could be set to beat her own record as a compilation of some of her hits has just been released to celebrate her big birthday.
8. She's published three books - memoirs and an autobiography: Vocal Refrain (1975), We'll Meet Again (1989) and Some Sunny Day (2009). She's appeared on This is Your Life twice and the Royal Variety Performance four times.
9. She's not a fan of Pigeon racing. She describes the sport as "utterly cruel" and joined a PETA campaign against it in 2013.
10. Pink Floyd include a song about her on their album, The Wall - the song is called simply, Vera and refers to her song, We'll Meet Again. In The film The Wall the music playing during the opening credits is Vera Lynn performing The Little Boy that Santa Forgot. The White Cliffs of Dover was included on a British National Party anti-immigration album - but Vera Lynn had nothing to do with that. In fact, she sued them for using the song without her permission and making it look as if she supported with them, when she didn't. She doesn't align with any political party.

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