An article published on 20th October headlined ‘Dame Vera High on Life, Methamphetamine’ erroneously implied that beloved wartime songstress Dame Vera Lynn, flush with new-found fame and wealth after her recent return to the top of the album charts this summer, has developed a damaging addiction to crystal meth.

We acknowledge that there is no evidence to support this claim and retract it with an unreserved apology to Dame Vera. We have since removed the story from our website.

“Nightly at 3am, the dodgy Dame rolls in from a night on the tiles drunk off her tits, then lights up and huffs away until her eyes pop out,” we wrote, mistakenly.

We continued: “Crystal meth is not her only vice. Our sources say that on nights out clubbing, she often succumbs to the temptation to ‘do The White Cliffs of Dover’, a little-known street name for cocaine.

“Vivacious Vera, 92, parties the night away with a toyboy on each arm, then sleeps until noon, when she awakes demanding a Fabergé egg omelette washed down with the urine of Princess Rania of Jordan. Minutes later, she’s back on the dope, starting the whole sordid cycle again. On Sundays, she takes the day off to feed her horses with the souls of orphans.”

These claims, we later found out, are also false.

While we regret that the article we published contained demonstrably untrue statements, we would like to emphasise that we reported in good faith information confirmed by our sources, which we believed to be factual. We have since determined these sources to be unreliable, and recognise that we should have had cause for suspicion when told that Dame Vera “became so high on acid that she literally flew around her east London bedsit, flapping her bingo wings and farting La Marseillaise”.

We would like to make abundantly clear that we consider Dame Vera Lynn to be a national treasure and a person of great historical distinction. These allegations were patently too ridiculous to warrant serious attention.

We are sorry for any offence caused.