 During World War I, she made her professional debut in the concerts of Lena Ashwell's company, formed at the request of King George V, singing concerts to entertain Britain's troops in France.John Arlott wrote of her, "Hers was the voice in Fred Weatherly's songs, "Danny Boy" and "Roses of Picardy", that is preserved in the mind's ear of surviving 1914–18 trench fodder.