London, Yesterday. World War II forces sweetheart and, at 92, the oldest person to reach number one in the UK album chart, Dame Vera Lynn, has been admitted to the Prior E Clinic, citing exhaustion.
Her Agent, Max Hergestellt, has admitted that she had been feeling the pressure of being at the top once more. "But stories of drug taking are ridiculous. Left to herself she wouldn't even drink two cups of tea in the same hour, let alone eating Hobnobs."
Reports suggest this is far from the truth. In fact, Dame Vera "Lines" is no stranger to the seedy underside of the entertainment industry. Even her name is slang for "skins" (a precursor to drug-filled, mind-bending "joints"). During World War II she was cleared of heroin and cocaine charges to protect British morale, and news of her activities with the US 101st Airborne Division (all of them) was suppressed on Winston Churchill's orders.
According to Rolling Stone Keith Richards, "She fucked and snorted her way through the fifties, sixties and seventies. She wore me out. And my nose. And my arse. And the rest of the band. Mick wrote Honky Tonk Woman about her. I think she was shagging the Yardbirds too. She is an incredible lady."
It is rumoured that her best-known song "We'll Meat Again," refers to an assignation with a well-endowed member of the Expeditionary Force killed in France, 1940.
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