symbol of the second. vera welch, daughter of a plumber and a dressmaker, began singing as a child. she took her grandmother's surname, lynn, as a stage name, made her first record aged 19, and sold one million records in the next three years. this little girl from east ham would never have had the opportunity if she hadn't have been singing. if my mother hadn't put me on the stage! this letter of mine is getting to be a sort of rendezvous, where husbands and wives, torn apart by war, can be brought together by music. when war broke out again, vera began broadcasting with the bbc. through a forces request programme, "sincerely yours," she became the girl that thousands of fighting men hoped they'd meet when they returned home, although some accused the programme of damaging the war effort. "too sentimental, making the boys homesick." and i said, "that's rubbish, a lot of rubbish, because the letters