I was due to be working this week but it didn’t happen and instead I got a day in France. Poor me, hey 😉
We went by ferry which meant we got to see the White Cliffs in all their glory. I forgot my camera (I was awake ridiculously early so my brain wasn’t exactly efficient…) but here’s a pic my dad took as we came into port on our way home. It shows the harbour walls and a ferry in port, and just on the top of the hill in the background is Dover Castle. Look how calm the water is – we were very lucky!
One of the most well-known WWII songs here in the UK is probably (There’ll be Bluebirds over) The White Cliffs of Dover, famously sung by Vera Lynn. Dame Vera turned 97 on the 20 March; my grandma shared her birthday.
Interestingly, there are no bluebirds in Dover; they are not native to this part of the world. The writers of the song were both from the USA and probably didn’t know this, and it didn’t seem to matter to the listening public at the time but it did leave the way open for a variety of alternative meanings for those unlikely birds.
My favourite interpretation is that the bluebirds were a sign of happiness to come. This ties the song in to other US works too, like Somewhere over the Rainbow, which was written a couple of years earlier.
Ornithology notwithstanding, when I see the White Cliffs I think of home – and how lovely to come home with lots of French goodies 🙂
Happy writing
EJ
🙂
Becoming a writer 
It’s a hard life indeed!
My dad disliked Vera Lynn intensely and that song in particular because he said it made everyone feel so homesick when serving in Germany and Italy. He felt that to cope with the war the last thing he needed was that kind of sentimentality.
That’s interesting, I hadn’t really thought about it like that. I always think of her as ‘The Forces’ Sweetheart’…
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