Vera Lynn died today.

For the generation(s) that don’t know who she was, Lynn was a singer in World War Two, most famous for her song We’ll Meet Again.  There were others songs – including White Cliffs of Dover – but We’ll Meet Again became ‘the’ British song of the 40s and she became known as The Forces Sweetheart.

I was never a huge fan.  Given I was born a decade after the war ended, she was too old-fashioned for me, and World War Two a piece of ancient history.  But my parents loved her.  Dad served in the army while Mum remained on the Home Front, caring for my brother.  They were apart for six years.

Six years.

We’ll Meet Again.

No wonder they loved that song, full of poignancy, optimism and hope.

Noel Coward once wrote, ‘Strange how potent cheap music is’.  Watching a Youtube compilation of Vera singing it throughout the decades, I found the tears streaming down my face. Mum and Dad were suddenly alive in my head and I miss them so much.  Dad has been dead forty years now.  Mum almost twenty.  I have a very clear memory of Mum standing at the kitchen sink in our house in Glasgow, singing it while she washed the dishes, and of standing on Dad’s toes in the dining room as he tried to teach me to dance.

With Father’s Day coming up this weekend, I feel their loss even more keenly.

We’ll Meet Again.

I truly hope we do.