The chairman Val Hamblin welcomed us to our Friday, April 24 meeting held in the Friends Meeting House, Evesham when she informed us of the death of one of our founder members Lyn Osborne, a lady of tremendous talent (it was reputed that she could do the Telegraph Crossword in 10 minutes even in her nineties).

Val introduced our speaker Malcolm Lewis from Cirencester who played CDs of songs etc from WW2. He started with music from 1939 such as Judy Garland's rendering of "Over the Rainbow", Glen Miller's "Moonlight Serenade", "Little Brown Jug" etc and spoke of Glen's untimely death in a plane over the English Channel which remains a mystery to this day. He also played "White Christmas" written by Irving Berlin possibly in 1940. He could not play the piano so one day he told his secretary "Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I've every written - heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody's every written". And this has proved to be true because, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the version sung by Bing Crosby has been the best selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.

Malcolm played us so many more Wartime favourites including Noel Gaye's "Run Rabbit" Gracie Fields rendering of "Wish Me Luck as you wave me Goodbye", "A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square" beautifully sung by Vera Lynn and so on. We also listened to Churchill's "Finest Hour Speech" which still brings a lump to one's throat. Most of us remembered the war years and the songs! and had a very enjoyable morning.

JACKIE HALE

EVESHAM AREA LADIES PROBUS