A WOMAN known to many as Wilmslow's Vera Lynn has died at the age of 90.

Last Thursday, there was a good turnout at a service of thanksgiving to celebrate the life of Lilian Murphy.

Lilian of Chapel Court, Wilmslow, was born in 1924 and in her early twenties was a singer in The Georgians Dance Band that played at the local British Legion Club.

Such was the sweetness and resonance of her voice that she was dubbed as Wilmslow’s answer to Vera Lynn, who during the war years was known as the forces’ sweetheart.

During the service at Macclesfield Crematorium, the Rev Colin Gordon-Farleigh said that Lilian was one of five siblings and is survived by her sister Joyce.

She attended Nursery Lane School when she was five and she lived in Wilmslow for all of her life. He described how she loved singing and dancing both during and after the war years.

He told the congregation: “She made friends easily with her cheeky and cheerful personality, through working in greengrocers’ shops in the daytime and bar work in the evenings.”

During the war Lilian worked at Humphrey Bros (UMBRO), at its factory on Water Lane. Much of the work at that time was making uniforms for the British Forces.

Later she was employed at Mac Fisheries in Grove Street and at Peter Hammond’s greengrocers shop on the corner of Alderley Road and Water Lane.

She was also an usherette at The Rex Cinema and a barmaid at the now demolished Railway Hotel on Station Road.

Lilian leaves a daughter Jackie from her first husband Bob and a daughter Pat and son Mike from her 30-years marriage to the late Paddy Murphy. She also leaves three grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

The Rev said: “Her family was of great importance to her and she loved to spend time with all of them.”

The Rev Gordon-Farleigh told how 16 years ago after retiring from the workplace, Lilian found a good friend in George Wickenden.

At the age of 74 she moved to live in Chapel Court and this provided her with the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. Sadly her friend George died shortly after she moved there.

He told the congregation: “She will be so greatly missed by her family and all the people that she shared her life with. But she leaves so many happy memories behind and it is these that will help to ease the pain of her passing in time to come.”

It was a poignant moment at the end of the service when the voice of Vera Lynn filled the chapel to the strains of the wartime favourite “We’ll Meet Again.”