Mention the White Cliffs of Dover and most people will think of the tune made famous by Vera Lynn. (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs Of Dover is one of the most famous of all the second world one-era pop classics. It was a huge hit in 1942, summing up perfectly the feelings of all the Allies towards the British people in their brave fight against Hitler.

The words were written by Nat Burton and the melody by Walter Kent - Burton was an American who had never been to Dover, and is why he pictured the (unlikely) scene of bluebirds flying over the cliffs…

There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see
There'll be love and laughter and peace ever after
Tomorrow when the world is free

The shepherd will tend his sheep
The valley will bloom again
And Jimmy will go to sleep
In his own little room again

There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see
The shepherd will tend his sheep
The valley will bloom again
And Jimmy will go to sleep
In his own little room again

There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait…and see!

It had previously been released in the States - first by bandleader Kay Kyser and his Orchestra, which hit number 1 in 1941 and 1942 in the US, then four other artists reached the top 20: Glenn Miller, Sammy Kaye, Jimmy Dorsey and Kate Smith.

Still, the most well-known version in England is Vera Lynn's. Over the years it has also been recorded by Connie Francis, Bing Crosby, Jim Reeves and The Righteous Brothers. In 1995 the Robson (Green) and Jerome (Flynn) record Unchained Melody /White Cliffs Of Dover went to number 1 in the UK after selling more than 1.9 million copies.

Forces sweetheart

Vera Lynn hailed from East Ham, London, and began singing at the age of seven and went on to feature on records released by dance bands such as Joe Loss's and Charlie Kunz's. In 1940, the year after the second world war broke out, she began her own radio series, "Sincerely Yours", sending messages to British troops stationed abroad.

During the show, Lynn and a quartet would perform songs requested to her by soldiers stationed abroad: "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day" was particualarly popular, but it was The White Cliffs Of Dover which is her best-remembered song of the war years..

Her career flourished in the 1950s and she was appointed an OBE in 1969 and a DBE (Dame) in 1975. Her last public appearance was when, aged 78, she sang outside Buckingham Palace in 1995 to mark the golden jubilee of VE Day. She made a surprise appearance at England's VE Day concert in Trafalgar Square in 2005. She made a speech praising the veterans and calling upon the younger generations to always remember their sacrifice.

"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 literature

The first recorded description of Dover is the scene that Julius Caesar saw in 55 BC when, with two legions of soldiers, he arrived off Dover looking for a suitable landing place and "saw the enemy's forces, armed, in position on all the hills there. At that point steep cliffs came down close to the sea in such a way that it is possible to hurl weapons from them right down to the shore. It seemed to me that the place was altogether unsuitable for landing." (Caesar's Commentaries, Book IV.)

In 1605 Shakespeare's theater company, known as the King's Men, visited Dover and performed King Lear, which includes a scene on Dover's Shakespeare Cliff in which the blinded Earl of Gloucester, intending to jump from the cliff, asks Edgar to lead him to Dover:

King Lear Act IV Scene 1

Earl of Gloucester: Dost thou know Dover?
Edgar: Ay, master
Earl of Gloucester: There is a cliff whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me: from
that place
I shall no leading need.

"There is a cliff, whose high and bending head Looks fearfully on the confined deep. Come on, sir ; here's the place : stand still. How fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so large as beetles ; half-way down Hangs one that gathers Samphire dreadful trade! Methinks he looks no bigger than his head! The fishermen that walk upon the beach Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark, Diminished to her cok; her cok a buoy, Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge, That on the unnumbered pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong."


Also, in Shakespeare's King Henry VI part II 1590, act IV scene I, William de la Poole, Duke of Suffolk, is murdered on the shore near Dover. The actual event took place in 1450 when William de la Poole was beheaded at sea while crossing the channel.

In poetry

In 1851, Matthew Arnold - the son of the headmaster of Rugby School - wrote his most famous poem, Dover Beach. It was inspired by his visit to Dover following his honeymoon abroad earlier that year. You can read Dover Beach here.

The American writer and poet Alice Duer Miller (1874-1942) also wrote a long poem called The White Cliffs - this is the first verse:

I have loved England, dearly and deeply,
Since that first morning, shining and pure,
The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply
Out of the sea that once made her secure.
I had no thought then of husband or lover,
I was a traveller, the guest of a week;
Yet when they pointed 'the white cliffs of Dover',
Startled I found there were tears on my cheek.
I have loved England, and still as a stranger,
Here is my home and I still am alone.
Now in her hour of trial and danger,
Only the English are really her own.

In films

The White Cliffs Of Dover is the title of a 1944 black-and-white film starring Irene Dunne and a young (and uncredited) Elizabeth Taylor. The beginning of this second world war film features aerial shots of the cliffs, as Susan and her friend Sam approach England by sea.

"Susan, clearly moved by the sight, revels on the many things that await her in London where she and her father are going to spend two weeks vacation," says the The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com). "The White Cliffs Of Dover is about loyalty for one's country and how tradition plays a role in the lives of all the people one meets in the story, even during the difficult times these characters had to live."

The cliffs also feature in an Oscar-winning Canadian documentary called Churchill's Island. During the second world war, German films to be used in Germany for propaganda reasons were often intercepted by the Allies and sent to Canada. The National Film Board, under John Grierson, would then use the German footage in Allied propaganda.

Churchill's Island is perhaps the most famous of the Western propaganda, and extolls the virtues of the Allied cause while using Nazi footage to show the evils of fascism.