A RETIRED West End star who remembers watching Spitfires bring down Messerschmitts over London is holding a one-off concert to celebrate the Battle of Britain.

Cynthia Morey, who left her air-raid shelter in 1940 to watch the dogfights, has arranged a line-up of musical stars to bring the music of the period to St Mary’s Church, Cholsey, on Friday.

Miss Morey, who went on to become an opera star and West End singer, said her memories of the battle had remained with her ever since and inspired her to arrange the concert.

The villager said: “I was a child in Croydon when the Battle of Britain was taking place, right between the three airfields at Biggin Hill, Croydon and Kenley.

“I should have been in the air-raid shelter, but I used to go out and watch. It was amazing to see. We used to see them swooping in the sky, and the dogfights, while on the ground we would be shouting and cheering.

“At the time we did not realise quite how brave the pilots were.

“But there was excitement and danger, and the memory always stuck with me.”

The war-themed show, which will include a collection for the RAF Benevolent Fund, will take place two days after the 70th anniversary of the RAF claiming victory. Throughout the summer of 1940, the German air force tried to gain control of the straits of Dover to enable a land invasion, before switching to bombing raids on British cities.

But the RAF’s Fighter Command fought back, using the newly-invented radar and Hurricanes and Spitfires to bring down the German planes.

Miss Morey said the memorial concert would feature everything “from Vera Lynn to Beethoven”.

County singer Jane Partington will be performing Gracie Fields songs on the ukulele and Anthony Jennings, a former BBC Symphony Orchestra clarinettist, will play Moonlight Serenade.

The concert follows the publication last year of a book describing Miss Morey’s memories of the war, Dark Is The Dawn, which she wrote after discovering her dog-eared school exercise books, a 1939 diary, and wartime letters from her brother Paul, then a navigator for Bomber Command.

Miss Morey started her career singing Gilbert and Sullivan with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, before singing with the Sadlers Wells Opera Company and English National Opera. She performed in Me and My Girl, Fiddler on the Roof, and My Fair Lady on the West End.

Tickets for the concert, which starts at 7.30pm, are £8 and are available on the door and from the R G Park butcher shop, in The Pound.