THE last surviving World War I widow this week visited the National Memorial Arboretum to mark Armistice Day by placing a wreath.

Dorothy Ellis of Iddesleigh, who turned 93 on Armistice Day, laid a wreath at the arboretum's Gallipoli Memorial in memory of her late husband Wilfred, whose wartime heroics helped to inspire Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse. The book was turned into an award-winning play and then Hollywood blockbuster, directed by Steven Spielberg.

A private in the Norfolk Regiment, Wilfred survived being shot in the ankle and gassed in the space of five months in 1918.

He rarely spoke of his experiences until he shared memories with author Michael Morpurgo when they both lived in the village more than 30 years ago.

As a result, Morpurgo's book War Horse was dedicated to Wilfred, along with fellow Iddesleigh villagers Albert Weeks and Captain Arthur Walter Morland Budgett when it was first published in 1982.

Morpurgo moulded the experiences of Wilfred, Weeks and Budgett into the successful fictional account of the Great War, focused on a horse who served at the front.

When fighting on the front line in March 1918, Wilfred was shot and was the last man to get on the wagon taking the wounded off the battlefield to hospital.

With the high casualty numbers, he was rushed back to the frontline, and just a few months later was gassed by Phosgene, more toxic than chlorine gas previously used by the Germans.

Reeling from its effects, he sheltered in his trench as it was overrun by German troops, and had a lucky escape amid the chaos of battle.

A German soldier jumped down into Wilfred's trench with a fixed bayonet. He looked at Wilfred, left him in the trench and moved on.

Through sheer determination, Wilfred hobbled back to the British lines, and was eventually sent home.

Wilfred was a trained violinist who worked on the cruise ship RMS Empress of Britain and seaside resorts after the war before he moved to Devon during the 1930s to be close to his ill father.

It was then he met Dorothy, who was some 23 years his junior. They married in 1942, when she was 21 years old. Although the couple were unable to have children, they fostered twin girls, Pauline and Joan. In the Second World War, Dorothy and Wilfred distributed food supplies, ensuring the population of rural Devon. swollen by evacuees, could eat.

Today, Wilfred lies next to Albert Weeks in the peaceful village churchyard. Born in 1901, Weeks was too young to serve in the Great War and spent his life as a farm labourer working mostly with horses. He died aged 96.

Wilfred died in 1981, aged almost 83.