FORCES' Sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn has joined the York-based campaign for a memorial to the women of the Second World War.

Dame Vera, one of the most high-profile women of the war years, is giving her full backing to the fight for a memorial in Whitehall to remember the contribution made by all women during the war.

"Some time ago I wrote a book about the women who won the war and did many interviews with them. The women really played such a big part during the war, but they haven't really been recognised," she told the Evening Press.

"They worked on the buses, in the factories, in the ambulances, in the Land Army and also abroad for the Resistance.

"I've always felt like women were not recognised, so when I was asked if I would support this campaign I said: 'Yes, of course'."

Dame Vera, 84, now fills her time with charity work, much of it with ex-servicemen and women's charities, and she will be heading a new drive in the women's memorial fundraising, targeting singers, actors and entertainers.

She has become a vice-patron of the campaign, alongside the Princess Royal and local MPs, Hugh Bayley and John Grogan, and said she would love to be at the unveiling ceremony.

The campaign's patron is Betty Boothroyd, former Speaker of the House of Commons, and the Queen has said she would be honoured to unveil the memorial.

Major David Robertson, of Imphal Barracks, campaign co-ordinator, said fundraising so far had reached £136,000, he said, and another £175,000 towards the £700,000 total was now needed.

The cost has risen because of the need to buy a site in the centre of Whitehall, just 200 metres from the Cenotaph.

Another site, on Raleigh Green opposite the Ministry of Defence, had to be rejected because of difficulties with a large underground oil tanker.

A detailed planning application will be submitted to City of Westminster Council early this year to build the memorial, and it has the backing in writing of Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London.

Major Robertson said: "We have made very positive progress. I would dearly love for the memorial to be up by the end of 2002 but there is always the possibility that Westminster Council turn us down. If they do there will be the most enormous hue and cry."

The design for the memorial, which was revealed exclusively in the Evening Press earlier this year, is also moving on and a maquette, or model, of the sculpture has been made.

The last year has also seen the campaign getting together with the Imperial War Museum in London to appeal for women's memories of their wartime experiences, to fill a gap in its huge wartime archive. An exhibition is to be mounted at the museum in 2003.

Updated: 08:30 Wednesday, January 02, 2002