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Keep Smiling Through

UK Publisher: Century / Random House

I was just twenty-seven years old when I went to Burma. It was an experience that changed my life for ever. Up until that time I had not really travelled anywhere at all, apart from one touring visit to Holland with a band I was singing with before the war, and I had certainly never been in an aeroplane. But I wanted to make a difference, to do my bit.

And she did.

Written with her daughter, Virginia Lewis-Jones, Keep Smiling Through is the powerful and life-affirming account of the time Dame Vera Lynn spent with troops in wartime Burma. Based in part on a diary she kept, alongside unpublished personal letters and photographs from surviving veterans and their families, it will explore why it was such a life-defining event for her and show how her presence helped the soldiers, airmen and others who heard her sing.

Dame Vera Lynn was one of our most revered recording artists. Dubbed 'The Forces' Sweetheart' because of her tireless work...