At almost a century old, the trenching tool — rust-red and hefty — is a remnant from a different age.

Once wielded to carve passageways in the Flanders mud, it is now cradled tenderly in the lap of widow Dorothy Ellis who celebrates her 90th birthday on Armistice Day.

It is a bridge into the past and a touch-point for the future as her veteran husband, Wilfred, was an inspiration for the story 'War Horse', about to be released as a blockbuster film.

The trenching tool was brought back by Wilfred, a private in the Norfolk Regiment, along with a battered Bible which still bears faint notes he kept about his war service on its fragile first page.

A pencil-written record reveals he suffered a leg injury in March 1918, was gassed in August the same year and returned home that December.

Although his bravery earned him a mention in dispatches, he rarely spoke of his experiences until he shared memories with author Michael Morpurgo when they lived in the same picturesque Devon village more than 30 years ago.

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

Since then it has been made into a hit stage show in the West End and on Broadway. A film by Steven Spielberg with an all-star cast is due to be released in the UK in January.

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

Dorothy was told by her husband how he scrambled to safety from the mud after being shot in the ankle.

'After he was injured he was the last one able to get on the wagon which took the wounded to hospital,' said Dorothy. 'Otherwise they would have left him behind. They were short of troops because there had been such a massacre so they didn't wait until the men were really well before getting them back to the trenches.'

Back at the frontline, Wilfred was gassed by Phosgene, more toxic than chlorine gas previously used by the Germans.

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

'He was terrified,' said Dorothy. 'He would rather have died than been taken prisoner. One of the German soldiers jumped down into the trench with a fixed bayonet. He just looked at Wilfred. Later Wilfred told me: "I expect he thought I was a poor devil who wasn't worth the effort (of killing). " Eventually, Wilfred hobbled his way back to the British lines although he said he had no idea how he did it. He had got a strong faith.'

After being sent home from the front, he arrived with only what he could carry. That included the trenching tool, grabbed in the rush to leave. 'When he got back to London where he lived with his family he was absolutely filthy dirty and unwashed.

'People were moving away from him as if he had got some disease. When he got home his mother immediately made him have a bath.'

Another of Dorothy's cherished possessions is a card sent by Wilfred to his mother during the conflict.

Wilfred, who was born in Wimbledon, signed up for service on 27 September 1916 aged 17 years and 10 months and was assigned to the 21stTraining Reserve Battalion. Later he was appointed to his regiment.

Despite his leg injury which left him with a scar, Dorothy says he was one of the best dancers she knew.

'You couldn't believe he was the age he was really. He was always cracking jokes, laughing and singing. He had a beautiful voice,' recalls Dorothy.

In fact, he 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 father, who was ill. That's where 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, who continue to care for Dorothy.

Her own father, George Lott, had also been injured during the First World after being buried alive following an explosion that permanently damaged his hearing. He was saved after being dug out by comrades in the Coldstream Guards.

One of her saddest recollections is about the death of Iddesleigh resident George Martin, who lost both legs in the First World War and eventually died at home from typhoid fever. He is buried in an unmarked pauper's grave in the village churchyard. 'It hurts me to talk about it,' she admits. 'He fought for his country. He should have been better remembered than that. My father, who told me about it, was extremely angry that no one cared enough to do more.'

Dorothy was born in 1921, a year after the present Portland stone Cenotaph — meaning empty tomb — was erected in Whitehall.

In the Second World War Dorothy and Wilfred distributed food supplies, ensuring the population of rural Devon swollen by evacuees could eat. He and Dorothy, who is the village correspondent for the Okehampton Times, ran an antiques business and she can remember selling an oil painting of a horse to Michael Morpurgo. Wilfred died in 1981, aged almost 83.

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.

His daughter Margaret, who still lives in Iddesleigh, recalls his favourite horse was called Joe, whereas the horse in Morpurgo's book is called Joey. The Devon-based first owner of 'War Horse' Joey is called Albert.

The last of the trio that inspired Morpurgo was Captain Arthur Walter Morland Budgett, born in 1895 and made a Second Lieutenant in the Berkshire Yeomanry shortly after the outbreak of the First World War.

In 1922 he was made Captain of the 99th (Bucks and Berks) Brigade. In the 1930s he moved to Iddesleigh where he was the master of Hatherleigh Harriers. Budgett died in 1981.