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Blue Plaques
WARTIME SONGS AS PLAQUE UNVEILED FOR FORCES FAVOURITE ANNE SHELTON
10 October 2008
By David Yuill
dyuill@southwarknews.org
A PLAQUE was unveiled in honour of wartime songstress Anne Shelton at her long time home on Monday.
The current owners of 142 Court Lane in Dulwich, Jeremy and Jackie Prescott, gave the council permission to erect the tribute, after she picked up more than 1,000 votes in the 2007 Blue Plaque ballot.
The scheme, run by the 'News' and the Southwark Heritage Association along with Southwark Council, allows people from the borough to vote for their favourite people or places that deserve to be commemorated with a plaque.
The ceremony included songs from the Swingtime Sweethearts, who performed one of Anne Shelton's most well known numbers 'Lay Down your Arms', as well as speeches from opera singer and friend Tessa Cahill and Anne's niece Kelly Richards.
Ms Richards, who has released a book about her aunt, said Anne would have been humbled and proud by the tribute, and revealed that she loved Dulwich so much she never wanted to leave the home when it was sold fourteen years ago.
Ms Richards said: "She said, ‘If I ever move from this house I will die’ and I said 'Don't be silly!', but how wrong I was - she passed away just five months after she left here."
Speaking to the 'News' after the ceremony Ms Richards added: "She was a wonderful lady and this place was just magical. She lived here for 50 years and this house was full of memorabilia of her career and of all kinds of other things from show business."
Anne started performing when she was just fourteen, and secured her first recording contract by the age of sixteen. Throughout her career she performed with Glenn Miller and Bing Crosby, and had hits on both sides of the Atlantic.
When her career scaled down in later years, she worked tirelessly with disabled war veterans’ charity The Not Forgotten Association. Her final performances took place at Buckingham Palace - the first in 1990 when she picked up an OBE and the latter at a concert where she sang a selection of her hits.
The next 2007 Blue Plaque to be unveiled will be on October 12, when photographer Bert Hardy will be honoured.
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Comments (1)
1. At 05:10 PM on 13 Oct 2008, Jim wrote:
One of my biggest dissapointments occurred on Monday 6th October 2008 due to the fact I was unable to attend the unveiling of the Blue Plaque awarded to the late Anne Shelton at her former home in Court Lane, Dulwich. This was due to sickness which is still with me at the time of writing. However, Kelly Richards (Anne's niece) was kind enough to email me some photographs taken of the occasion and I was able to get an idea of how the event went off.
I have always considered myself Anne's No.1 (and oldest) fan, possibly because I have followed her career which began in 1940 with the Ambrose Orchestra from the very beginning. I was just twelve then.
This was a well deserved honour and I agree with Kelly, she would have been so proud and humbled by the occasion. It wouldn't surprise me if she was sharing the honour with her beloved sister Jo who sadly died in 1991 and was also a lovely singer.
My final comment is that in my opinion Anne should have been created a Dame in recognition for all her hard and tireless work for the Forces during WWII and years beyond, in fact right up to a couple of days before she sadly died in 1994. In the event she was award the OBE
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