Vera Lynn - Later Years

Later Years

Lynn sang outside Buckingham Palace in 1995 in a ceremony that marked the golden jubilee of VE Day. This was her last known public performance.

The United Kingdom's VE Day Diamond Jubilee ceremonies in 2005 included a concert in Trafalgar Square, London, in which Lynn made an unannounced 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". Following that year's Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance, Dame Vera encouraged the Welsh mezzo-soprano singer Katherine Jenkins to assume the mantle of "Forces' Sweetheart".

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.

On 3 September 2009 Andrew Castle hosted Lynn on GMTV to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Britain's declaring war on Germany. At the end of the interview she sang a verse from "We'll Meet Again," at Castle's request.

Her autobiography Some Sunny Day was published in August 2009, when Lynn was 92. She had written two previous memoirs: Vocal Refrain (1975) and We'll Meet Again (1989).

On 18 February 2009, The Daily Telegraph 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 does not align with any political party, to the party's views by association.

On 13 September 2009 Lynn became the oldest living artist to make it into No. 1 in the British album chart, at the age of 92, passing such veterans of music as American jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong and French singer Charles Aznavour. Her collection We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn entered the chart at number 20 on 30 August, and then climbed to number 2 the following week, before reaching the top position, outselling both the Arctic Monkeys and the Beatles. In its third week the album went gold with sales of over 100,000.